


Constellation Prize

by Whatclaptrap



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU but not as AU as you might think, Aged-Up Character(s), I don't know what else to put here, I'm Sorry, Older Characters, Other, Temporary Amnesia, confetti
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4578384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whatclaptrap/pseuds/Whatclaptrap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years since that summer.  It's been five years since Dipper vanished.  Mabel doesn't like to talk about it, and she doesn't think about it much.  What can you say about losing your other half?  But now she's having dreams.  Really weird dreams. And despite herself, she feels like it might have something to do with that summer up in Gravity Falls...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One At The Start

It had been five years.  

  
  
Five years since she and her brother had stayed the summer in Gravity Falls, Oregon.  On the dot.  She’d crossed out the day on the calendar over her bed when she had woken up, and then she had stared at the empty bed across from hers.  

 

Five years might have been a long time, but when you’d had someone by your side for the first twelve years of your life, five years of their absence felt like forever.  

 

Her parents did her best to cheer her up, but they tactfully didn’t say why they bothered making dinosaur-shaped pancakes that morning, or why there had been whipped cream and sprinkles all over her morning mocha.  Mabel appreciated the gestures, even if they didn’t do much.  They’d stopped going to the graveyard two years ago, and now the only thing marking this day was her calendar and the general quietness of their household.  

 

They didn’t talk about it.  Which had been fine for the first couple of years.  Mabel never wanted to talk about it.  She never went back to Gravity Falls, either, but she wrote letters to Grunkle Stan as often as she could.  She knew it wasn’t his fault, even if her parents frowned every time she brought him up, like she couldn’t see the disapproval in their eyes.  

 

It wasn’t Grunkle Stan’s fault.  It wasn’t.  

 

She had to work that day.  Her first summer job, and she was working at a crepe place in the Rockridge area of Oakland.  It had been fine, but not the exciting step into adulthood that she hoped it would be.  But her hours didn’t start until the afternoon, so she stayed inside after her parents left for work, and she laid on the couch, their cat Cupcakes curled up on her stomach.  She played with his feet.  He was so old, now.  

 

It had taken a long time to recover as much as she had.  She still wasn’t totally recovered.  It felt alien to look at all the drawings she’d done when she was little, all the fairy princesses and unicorn fairy princesses and endless drawings of boy bands.  She hadn’t drawn for the first year, after.  It had been hard.  She’d gotten better, though; she still thought about Dipper every day, of course she did, but it didn’t break her anymore, the knowledge that they never found the body and that they would never really know what happened to him. That had been exhausting for a twelve year old girl to handle.  So exhausting she’d blocked most of it from her memory; she remembered crying until she could barely breathe, until she passed out.  She didn’t remember very much else from that summer at all.  

 

It had been a normal summer for them, too, up until they’d realized Dipper was gone.  Working in Grunkle Stan’s shop.  Mabel, teasing Dipper about his crush on Wendy.  Getting into trouble with Wendy’s friends.  What little Mabel remembered was classic, the most basic summer vacation a person could ask for; then Dipper had disappeared into the woods and never come back.  

 

They told Mabel they’d searched for days.  She couldn’t remember.  All she could remember was panic and tears.  Dipper was her brother, her twin, her constant companion.  All she’d wanted at the time was for Dipper to be back.  

 

At the end of the summer, the search had been canceled. Her parents had driven up to take her back personally.  She remembered fighting them, trying to cling to Grunkle Stan, because in her head somehow he had been the only one who really understood.  

 

It didn’t matter, though.  They’d taken her back home, they’d held the funeral, and she had to try to figure out how to keep getting out of bed every day when her twin’s empty bed sat across the room as a grim reminder that she was alone.  

 

She learned, at first, to hide it for her parents.  It was hard to remember how she’d been before, but she put on the big empty grin a year after his death, trying to cheer them up.  She threw herself back into her eighties phase, all neon colors and retro cartoons, and it was a good way to draw the attention away from how hollow she was.  She collected stickers with twice the fervor, sang karaoke with friends because it was something to do, and she did her best to keep herself busy.  There was even a phase for a while where she’d gotten cheap secondhand plush animals and sewn them together to make hideous chimeras that she gave away as presents. The busier she was, the less time she had to focus on her missing half.  

 

It got easier as time went on.  Little by little she started enjoying things again, though it took years.  She realized it one night when she was fourteen, at her friend’s birthday party - she had sung an entire song in karaoke and had actually enjoyed it.  She actually started caring about her grades again, at least in part because she know Dipper would have wanted her to care.  She started to be a little less empty inside.  

 

There were still bad days.  Days where she didn’t want to be around anyone.  There was a night not too long ago where she ran away in the middle of the night, drove into San Francisco in the old car she’d inherited from her dad, and walked around Ocean Beach until the sun came up and she realized she’d be stuck in rush hour traffic. And even five years hadn’t dulled the pain of the day that Dipper had been declared dead.  But there were good days, too.  Having a job helped.  She was supposed to be saving money for when she went to college, but there was a part of her that wanted to go back and visit Grunkle Stan.  Even if visiting Gravity Falls alone scared her, she missed her Grunkle, and he sounded lonely in his letters.  

 

After a good hour of moping and playing with Cupcakes’ paws, Mabel dragged herself off the couch.  She had to change into work clothes.  She made it upstairs just in time to hear her cell phone, left charging on her bedside table, finish ringing.  

 

She stepped over, picking up the phone and unlocking it.  The missed call was from an Oregon number, and she frowned at it for the half moment before her voicemail notification pinged.  Thumbing over to the voicemail menu, Mabel wondered if maybe Grunkle Stan had finally gotten a cell phone, or if it was just a telemarketer.  

 

Her question was answered as soon as she brought the phone to her ear; Grunkle Stan’s voice played, and even though she hadn’t heard his voice since last year when he’d called on her birthday, there was something about the rough tone that was soothing.  “What?  Voicemail? What the… alright, fine.  Hey, kiddo.  I finally got one of those cell phones Soos has been badgering me about, and I figured, knowing what day it was… well, I just wanted to check up on you.  I’ve been...thinking about some things, and, well.”  There was a long pause.  Mabel expected something else, something more.  Instead, there was just a heavy sigh.  “Be safe, kid.”

 

That was it.  The voicemail ended.  Mabel pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it sternly, like that would make the voicemail make more sense.  It didn’t, of course.  For a moment, she considered calling Grunkle Stan back, but a quick glance at the time made her change her mind.  If she didn’t get ready to go now, she’d be late for her shift, and if she was going to talk to Grunkle Stan she didn’t want it to be rushed.  

 

A soft meow drew her attention, and Mabel glanced down as Cupcakes started twining between her ankles.  “Yeah,” she said, leaning down to scratch underneath his chin.  “These days are always weird, aren’t they, buddy?”  

 

Cupcakes gave a heavy mrow, wandering over to Dipper’s bed.  Mabel let him.  It made her feel a little more hollow, but, hey.  No one else was using it.  

 

She got changed quick, shoved her phone and wallet - both covered in puffy stickers - into her pockets, and went downstairs to fight with her inherited car.  She made it to work without the car stalling, which was good, and she clocked in on time.  If any of her coworkers noticed that her smile wasn’t as big as it was normally, or that her peppiness was on the low end, none of them mentioned it.  

 

She clocked in just before the lunch rush, and today, lunch was very much a rush.  She and the other waitresses went as fast as they could, taking orders and delivering food and beverages to tables, but only years of practice kept the smile on Mabel’s face.  Everything else was exhausting.  Not in a physically tiring way, but a soul-sucking, retail-worker sort of way.  They ran out of soymilk to make lattes with halfway through lunch, and Mabel had to endure with a cheerful grin as six different people scowled like she’d ruined their entire day and ordered ‘black coffee if that’s the ONLY vegan coffee you have’.  Partway through, Mabel switched herself to autopilot; even though she was taking down orders and waiting on tables, she focused on different animal combinations, like a snake and a badger becoming a snadger, or a bird and a wombat combining to become a wombird.  Right after the lunch rush died down, she doodled her favorite on a napkin - the giraffican, half giraffe and half pelican.  She resolved to find some plush animals that she could take apart to create the giraffican, when she had time in the future.  

 

It may have been frustrating - any customer service job was frustrating - but by the end of the day, Mabel was thankful for it.  There had been too much to do.  She hadn’t had any time to stop and think, and that was what she needed; constant, intense, mind-numbing work.  She stayed a little over, just to help clean up.  She was sure her manager would talk to her about it the next day, but she didn’t care.  She’d had four triple shot zebra mochas during her shift and her brain felt a little bit like it was vibrating, and the cleaning needed to get done.  

 

Her shift had only been eight hours, and the amount of caffeine and sugar in her body should have kept her going for a long time.  The jittery, overcaffeinated feeling stuck with her as she was driving home, and Mabel indulged in some road ragey name-calling when she got stuck behind someone going five miles under the speed limit, their turn signal stuck on for three whole blocks before they actually turned down a side street.  Aside from that, she got home without incident, and completely bypassed her parents, going up to her room.  

 

She kicked off her shoes, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket, flopping onto her bed.  She had ten smiling cell phone puffy stickers stuck to her phone case, and they all stared at her expectantly.  She should probably call her Grunkle Stan back, but now that she’d hit the bed, all of the energy went out of her.  

 

“I’m sorry, cell phone friends,” she said, sinking deeper into her bed.  She felt Cupcakes jump onto the bed, and then climb onto her lower back, purring softly.  “I’ll call him back tomorrow, I promise.”  

 

It would just be a nap.  A tiny little nap, and then she’d get up and brush the thick coating of sugar and espresso off of her teeth, and the next day she’d call Grunkle Stan and they’d commiserate over Dipper.  

 

Mabel shut her eyes, and she fell asleep.  

 

\---

 

_It’s a coming of age ritual.  She has to go through it.  Capturing and training her own kittycorn was imperative, otherwise she would never be seen as a grown woman.  This, however, was easier said than done; all she has is a grappling hook, and the kittycorn roost is at the very top of the cliffs of certain doom._

_Mabel grits her teeth, gathering all of her determination.  She makes sure the grappling hook is strapped to her hip, and she starts to climb, hand over foot, up the sheer cliffs.  It’s tough going.  The rocks bite into her hands, and finding toeholds is difficult.  Halfway up, a feathered snake slithers out of a hole in the cliffs and spreads its wings, hissing at her.  She bats it away, and it falls down the cliff._

_She keeps going, no matter what, until she gets to the overhang at the top of the cliffs. This is it, this is the place.  She pulls out her grappling hook, aiming for the lip of the overhang where one lone, ancient tree hangs.  She aims, and she fires, and by some miracle the grappling hook catches the tree.  She gives a few experimental tugs on the rope, and when she’s certain it’s caught, she swings off of the cliff.  She has to wait for the rope to steady itself, and then she climbs up, climbing into the branches of the tree.  She’s so close that she can hear the purring of the kittycorns._

_Mabel pauses to take a few deep breaths.  This is the moment.  If she can wrangle the golden kittycorn, then not only will she prove herself a woman, she will ascend to royalty.  If she’s quick…_

_She climbs up the tree, onto the ledge, and rolls out onto the kittycorn roost._

_Only, in that moment, everything flickers.  The grass changes.  It’s shorter, now, and in the distance instead of roosts there are trees.  Evergreens, reaching to the sky.  The sky is a flat gray.  She stares at it for a moment, a creeping feeling slithering down her spine._

_The sky flickers again as she stares at it.  Like clouds parting the gray moves to the sides, but what’s behind them isn’t any more comforting.  It’s stars, but too bright, too intense.  She grew up in the city, her night sky was handfuls of tiny stars peeking through clouds burnt orange by light pollution.  This night sky is so thickly detailed that she can see other galaxies far away, eddying, whirling, burning away._

_Then those stars start falling._

_It’s just one or two, at first.  Sparks wafting away in the breeze, they slip away and disappear.  Then bigger ones.  A flash and a streak across the sky, and they’re gone.  Mabel wants to move, but when she tries she feels like her feet are rooted to the spot.  A wind starts to rise, whipping her hair away from her.  She can’t look away as all the stars fall from the sky, streaks and flashes of light too bright to look away from.  They go, in twos and threes, and then fives and tens, until the sky has no more stars but pinstripes of blazing glory that vanish near as quick as they begin._

_The wind keeps rising, too, until even the evergreens that hadn’t been there before are waving with it.  Her hair is caught in the wind, her clothes too, and suddenly as the last stars tear away from the sky the wind becomes too much.  Her feet aren’t rooted to the ground anymore, and she’s blown away, head over heels._

_As the gust knocks her over the edge of the cliff, she hears a voice screaming after her._

  
WHERE ARE YOU, SHOOTING STAR? 


	2. In which Grunkle Stan tries to text

Mabel woke up by falling out of bed and landing face-first in the carpet.  

 

The room was dark, and her heart was thundering, breath coming in short gasps.  She sat up slowly, the words from her dream echoing in her head.  Something about it, that phrase, Shooting Star…  

 

Mabel took a couple of deep breaths, crossing her legs as she sat on the floor.  This was her room.  She was home, and she was safe.  It wasn’t even that bad a nightmare.  She’d had worse.  Far worse.  

 

She reached up onto her bed, after a moment, scrabbling for her phone.  When she switched the screen on the light blazed, and she winced, squinting at the time.  It was nearly two in the morning.  

 

With a little groan, she stood up.  She hadn’t even brushed her teeth before passing out.  Actually… she glanced down and groaned again, louder this time.  She hadn’t even taken off her shoes.    
  
Using the light of her phone, Mabel trudged downstairs.  She wanted water, and she needed to brush her teeth.  

 

She made her way in the darkness, half by muscle memory.  She’d snuck downstairs so many times in her life that she knew exactly where the floors creaked if you stepped on them, and where all the tables and chairs were - her mom hadn’t rearranged the house in years.  Mabel, on the other hand, had changed her side of the room six times in the past year.  She always left Dipper’s side alone.  Always, except to dust.  

 

Grumbling to herself, she reached the kitchen, turning on the lights and going through the cupboards to retrieve a glass.  Still feeling a little unsteady from the dream, she got ice from the ice dispenser, and slowly filled the cup with water.  As she waited for the cup to fill, she glanced over the things magneted to the fridge.  There were at least three takeout menus, and loads of old family photos.  Things from family reunions, pictures from christmases with everyone in sweaters that Mabel had knit. A couple of christmas cards from cousins, all sitting awkwardly in front of the wavy blue backdrop of a photo studio.  Mabel had always frowned on photo studio portraits; she could make better backdrops herself, and had, many times in the past.   

 

Her gaze drifted down, catching on the corner of a photograph that had been obscured by one of the takeout menus.  She moved brushed aside the takeout menu, then sucked in a sharp breath.  

 

It was an old picture.  Five years old, she remembered it.  Two little kids standing in front of a Speedy Beaver bus station, arms around each other’s shoulders, both with grins so wide it looked like it hurt.  Her and Dipper, right before they left for Gravity Falls.  But what held her attention was the sweater she wore in that old picture.  It had been too hot for a sweater that day, but she’d insisted on wearing it anyways.  It had been one of her favorites, for a little while.    
  
Bright pink, with a shooting star streaking across the front.    
  
Cold water ran over her fingers, and Mabel jumped, letting out a little squeak.  She’d overfilled the glass while she’d been staring, and with her jump she spilled even more, the water splattering across the kitchen linoleum.

 

If it had been any other time, she would’ve groaned.  Right now, though, her pulse was beating in her throat, and she didn’t know why.  

 

“It’s just a sweater,” she mumbled to herself, setting down the too-full glass on the counter. She reached for the paper towels, ripping off a handful and kneeling down to wipe the water off the floor.  From out of the hallway, Cupcakes came trotting in, just in time to stare with wide eyes as Mabel mopped up her spill.  

 

“Just a sweater, and just a stupid dream.”  Mabel threw the paper towels into the trash can, then paused, staring down at Cupcakes.  “I mean, why wouldn’t I dream about shooting stars?  Shooting stars are great!”  She threw her arms out, turning and wandering across the kitchen.  Cupcakes made a noise that sounded like mrrow and followed.  “Plus today - or I guess yesterday - was the anniversary, so maybe I just remembered the sweater and had a weird dream!  That’s not that strange.  Everyone has weird dreams!”  

 

Mabel stopped.  It didn’t ring right, even as she said it.  She was the queen of weird dreams.  Even in the beginning there had been cat unicorns, big enough to ride.  That was the kind of strange dream she had.  Not this, not shooting stars.  She frowned at the air, frustrated, and she started to tap her fingers on the countertop.  

 

An idea flickered into her head.  A silly idea, but an idea nonetheless.  She fished her phone out of her pocket, finding the number from the voicemail Grunkle Stan had left earlier.  After a moment of pondering, she opened up a new text; that way, if he was asleep, maybe she wouldn’t wake him.  

 

_> Grunkle Stan, do you remember what sweater I was wearing when I came to Gravity Falls?  _

She hit send, and immediately put her phone down on the counter.  It was a stupid idea.  She didn’t even know if Grunkle Stan could figure out how to text.  He might end up spending the next two days trying to figure out why a little notification had popped up.  

 

Mabel finally indulged in a good loud groan, and she went for her mom’s secret chocolate stash hidden in the cupboard over the sink.  All of this weird feeling called for the sweet, sweet release of sugar and endorphins.  

 

She was kneeling on the counter, staring into the cupboard over the sink and glowering at a Milky Way bar when the text tone for her phone went off.  She jumped for the second time that night, wobbling precariously on the counter before grasping the edge of the cupboard to steady herself.  She passed up the Milky Way bar - it was too star-related for her tastes right now - and grabbed one of those expensive European chocolate bars that her mom occasionally bought instead.  

 

Clambering down from the counter, Mabel tore open the chocolate bar, stuck it in her mouth, and then grabbed her phone.  It couldn’t be Grunkle Stan, she reasoned, it was two in the morning; probably one of her friends.  

 

But the little notification on her phone screen was that Oregon phone number.  And the text that had come from that number was nearly illegible. If somebody had taught Grunkle Stan how to text - and it was probably Soos and Wendy, if anybody - they had forgotten to tell him where to find punctuation.  

 

_> y do u sk and  w  hat r u dogin up so l8_

 

Mabel stared at it for a while, trying to parse...whatever the heck that was.  The novelty of having her Grunkle text her was immediately dashed by the mash of letters on her screen.  

 

She took the time to finish her chocolate bar while she decoded Grunkle Stan’s message, and then she replied, thumbs flying over the virtual keyboard of her phone.  

 

_> What am I doing up late?!  What are you doing up late!  You have a store to run!_

She paused, considering sidetracking herself and asking about Waddles.  But the idea of having to wade through more of Grunkle Stan’s texting made her shudder.

 

_> I had a weird dream.  About shooting stars.  _

 

She hit send, and she stood there waiting.  Cupcakes rubbed up against her ankles again, then flopped over on her feet, purring like a freight train.  

 

She had just started to tap her fingers on the counter impatiently when she got the first text. It was one and a half words total.  

 

_> thsts eir_

A moment later, another followed, only slightly more legible.  

_> thats weird r u tlking abt the pink sweter with the star rainbo_

 

Mabel started typing once more.  Her fingers hesitated over the buttons as a question popped into her head.  It was a long shot.  She couldn’t remember getting any nicknames over the summer she’d been in Gravity Falls, but she also couldn’t remember most of the summer. Not in very good detail.  Maybe…  

 

_> Yeah.  Did anyone ever call me that?  Shooting Star, I mean.  Like as a nickname.  _

 

It wasn’t particularly cold in the kitchen, but she shivered a little when she hit send anyways.  The pressure and warmth of Cupcakes on her feet was only slightly soothing.  She bent down, picking up the cat and cuddling him close to her chest as she walked from the kitchen into the darkened living room.  She didn’t bother to turn on a light, flopping down onto the couch as she waited for Grunkle Stan’s response.  Cupcakes shifted, curling up on Mabel’s chest and stretching out a paw to rest squarely on Mabel’s chin.  

 

Another text never came.  She waited and waited, until the soft rumble of Cupcakes’ purr started to lull Mabel to sleep.  

 

Right as she let her eyes drift shut, her phone rang.  

 

It was loud, and both she and Cupcakes jumped.  Cupcakes jumped with claws, though, and it took everything Mabel had not to shout as Cupcakes used Mabel as a springboard to launch across the room.  If she shouted, she’d wake up her parents, and then she’d have to explain why Grunkle Stan was calling her at two in the morning.  

 

She scrabbled for the phone, answering it as quick as she possibly could, if only to silence the ringing.  

 

“Hello?”  Her Grunkle’s voice came through, tinny and rough.  “Hello?  Is this thing on?”  

 

“Yes, Grunkle Stan, I can hear you,” Mabel said, and she hissed a little as she rubbed the spots where Cupcakes had dug her claws in.  That was going to hurt in the morning.  “What’s up?”  

 

“Ah, I can’t type too good on this tiny keyboard,” Grunkle Stan grumbled.  “My fingers are too big for it.  What, did they make this thing for babies?  Anyhow.  How ya doing, kid?”  

 

“I’m okay,” Mabel said, smiling a little in spite of herself.  Her parents never got it, why she wanted to keep talking to Grunkle Stan.  In their eyes, he’d become a failure as soon as Dipper had vanished under Stan’s supervision.  But Mabel trusted him completely.  If she could be herself around anyone anymore, it was probably Grunkle Stan.  “I mean, a little weirded out by the nightmare…”

 

“Nightmare? I thought you said it was a dream,” Stan said.  

 

Mabel shrugged, even though Grunkle Stan couldn’t see it.  “I don’t know, it wasn’t really a nightmare nightmare.  It was just freaky.  All the stars fell out of the sky and a voice called me shooting star.”  

 

Grunkle Stan went silent on the other end of the line for a moment.  He huffed a sigh.  “And that’s why you think it mighta been some kind of nickname?”  

 

Hearing somebody else say it, it sounded silly.  “Yeah,” Mabel said, voice small. She cleared her throat and continued on.  “It’s just, since it was the anniversary… anyhow, it sounds familiar!  I just can’t think of who might’ve called me that.”  

 

Stan grunted.  “Not Soos’s style.  Maybe Wendy?”  

 

Mabel smiled again.  She loved Stan a little more for just going with the idea.  He could’ve argued that it was a stupid dream, like she’d been telling herself all night, but he didn’t. He was the best Grunkle.  “I don’t think so, ‘cuz she hasn’t called me that any of the times I called to talk to Waddles.”  

 

“Pig’s doin’ great, by the way,” Stan said.  “Soos keeps feeding him when I’m not around.  If anything, this pig needs to lose weight.  ...Oof. _I_ need to lose weight.”  

 

“You could start jogging together,” Mabel suggested. “you could get matching sweatbands!”  

 

The noise that Grunkle Stan made it clear he wanted to avoid going any further down that avenue of discussion.  “So if it ain’t Wendy and it ain’t Soos… I dunno, maybe… Lazy Susan?”  

 

That was grasping at straws.  Mabel twisted her lips, thinking back to the time that she’d tried to help Grunkle Stan land a date with Lazy Susan.  That was the most time she’d spent with the woman, and it didn’t ring a bell.  “I don’t think so,” she said, after a moment of thought.  

 

“I hate to say it, kid, but do you think it might’ve been Gideon?”  

 

That sent a completely different type of shudder down Mabel’s spine; one of disgust.  “Eugh,” she said.  It was a fair question, Gideon had come up with a lot of nicknames for her when he’d been crushing on her.  She hoped it had died down from as crazy as it had been.  She didn’t know if it did or not.  Grunkle Stan had long since stopped telling her if he got letters from Gideon for her.  

 

“Yeah, I know,” Stan said.  “Still, the little punk was…inventive.”  

 

Mabel considered it for a moment.  She tried to remember what little she could about that summer.  Gideon had come up with a lot of nicknames, but the only ones she could remember were related to food.  Marshmallow, peach dumpling, nothing about stars.  

 

“Not Gideon,” she said firmly.  She might not remember who had said it, but that at least she was certain of.  

 

Stan grunted again.  “Good.  Little creep.  Well, look, kid, I know the question might be stuck in your head right now, but you should get some rest. Don’t you have your summer job?”  

 

Mabel sat bolt upright.  She did have another shift.  An opening shift.  She pulled the phone away from her face just long enough to check the time, and she winced.  “Aw, darn it!”  

 

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Stan lamented.  “I’ll think about it and get back to you tomorrow, how’s about that?”   

 

“Okay, okay,” Mabel said.  “I’ll go to bed.   _If_ you do too.”  

 

Grunkle Stan gave an indistinct grumble before saying real words.  “Soos is opening the shack anyways,” he muttered.  Then, a moment later, “ah, fine, okay.  I’ll sleep too.  Hit the hay, kid.”

 

“I’ll hit it so hard it’ll forget it’s hay,” Mabel said.  “Goodnight, Grunkle Stan.”  

 

“Goodnight, Mabel.  Sleep well.”  

 

 


	3. In which Mabel attempts to live her life

_She’s standing near a waterfall on a lake, cliffs rising on either side.  It seems familiar, only it’s more intense than reality could be, the lake water too blue and perfect and clear.  Somehow, she knows it._

_In that same way that she just knows, she knows that there’s a cave behind the fountain.  She slips around the waterfall, her long hair catching the mist and hanging heavy against her back.  Everything is damp, and there’s mildew in the air._

_The cave has a little lagoon inside, and she sees something big and dark curled up in the corner.  She gazes at it, some flicker of recognition in the back of her mind, but when she draws closer she sees that whatever it had been, it’s broken down now.  Nothing but sheetmetal and parts scattering across the sand._

_She steps closer, and she stands, the roar of the waterfall beating against her ears._

_The shadows in the room feel like they’re crawling.  She realizes it, and somehow it isn’t terrifying.  She watches from the corner of her eye, watches as they ripple and shift, struggling._

_They twist, and they move, until they spin out across the cave wall.  It’s like shadow puppetry, only there’s nothing between the light and the wall.  They drip and dribble, start and stop, and she goes cold as they start to form together.  She shudders, eyes widening, as the shadows shape three words._   
  
_Where Are You?_

_They stay there, tall letters taking up the wall, until she hears something hiss in her ear._  “Shooting Star…”

_There is a moment. Only a moment of silence.  Then the ground bursts beneath her, the sand seeping away as the ground beneath bucks and cracks, and spindly shadow limbs rush forth.  Long digits the color of the night sky wrap around her ankles, too tight, so tight it hurts, and she is yanked down, into the darkness._

\---

 

Mabel woke up with a jerk, a scream in her throat.  

 

She was in her car.  It took a moment to realize, but when she does she realized that the tightness around her chest was the seatbelt, and the way her long hair matted to her head was sweat.  It took two tries, but she unlatched the seatbelt with shaking hands and stumbled out of her car.  

 

Almost instantly, a breeze rushed by her, and all at once the sweat on her body cooled.  Mabel took a deep breath, sagging against her car.  She ran her hands through her hair, pushing it out of her face.  

 

She was napping on her lunch break.  That’s all it was.  Just another weird dream while she slept in her car.  Probably because it had gotten too hot.  She took another deep breath and looked around, checking with belated embarrassment to see if anyone was watching the girl having a panic attack mid-nap.  

 

Nobody was staring, which was good.  Mabel gulped in more fresh air, and she gathered her hair in her hands, finger combing the sweaty tangles out of it.  She resisted the urge to start chewing on a strand, but only barely.  

 

"Probably just freaked out," she reasoned to herself.  "I mean, I just had the freaky dream, why wouldn't I have another freaky dream about the same thing?"

 

Even if it was particularly vivid.  Even if she had woken up both times with her heart beating like she'd just run a race.  No reason to feel as unnerved as she did.  

 

She busied herself, checking the time on her phone.  She still had a few minutes before she had to clock in, so she separated her hair, quickly braiding it so it wouldn't get in the way.  She had a hair tie in the car.  Well, really, a plethora of hair ties, scrunchies, and a couple of headbands, most of them stuffed into the cup holders.  She'd find something.  She finished braiding and tied the braid off with a bright pink scrunchie before walking back into work.  

 

They’d already dealt with the lunch rush, and the stream of customers had slowed down by the time Mabel slipped back in.  She busied herself with organizing the front counter, passing the time until more customers came seeking crepes and coffee.  

 

Mabel had just re-stacked the cups to be a pyramid when someone walked up to the counter.  She glanced up and stalled, the smile on her face freezing.  

 

"Ms. Sprague?" She squeaked.  She hadn't seen any of her elementary school teachers since she'd graduated, and she was going to feel like a total idiot if it was someone who was just a lookalike.  

 

The woman on the other side of the counter blinked, eyebrows furrowing in a frown.  Her gaze drifted down to Mabel's name tag, and then her eyes widened.  "Mabel Pines? Goodness!"  

 

The surge of relief made Mabel stand a little straighter and smile a little more sincerely.  "Yep! It's me!  I'm working here over the summer!"  

 

If anything, Ms. Sprague’s eyes got wider.  A smile flickered across her face.  “Wow, time really flies, doesn’t it?  How many years… well, you’ll be going off to college this fall, won’t you?”  

 

Mabel nodded.  She really should probably just take Ms. Sprague’s order, and she could see one of the other waitresses giving her an annoyed look from the kitchen, but she didn’t care.  “Yep, I’m going to go to CCA for fashion design!”  

 

“California College of the Arts?”  Ms. Sprague’s smile got a little more teasing.  “Not going far out of your back yard, are you?”  

 

Mabel flushed a little, shrugging.  Her parents had wanted her to stay close, and she’d wanted to study fashion design - had insisted on it, really, because she was a pioneer - so she’d insisted on CCA.  Plus it meant she wouldn’t have to spend money on an apartment or student housing; it was so close to home that she could just commute every day.  It made up a little bit for how expensive it was.  

 

“What about your brother?” Ms. Sprague asked. “Is he staying so close by?”   

 

Like that, the smile dropped off of Mabel’s face.  She had to keep herself from cringing.  Ms. Sprague had been her fifth grade teacher.  Of course she wouldn’t have heard.  It’s not like Mabel had had to go back to elementary school missing her twin.  

 

“Ah...no,” Mabel said, looking down.  She didn’t want to see the look on her teacher’s face. She hated seeing how people looked at her when they found out.  “Dipper, uh… he passed away.  Five years ago.”  

 

She hated saying that, too.  Passed away was too nice a term, like someone was trying to make it palatable.  It didn’t make it clear how much a person’s absence hurt, like a physical wound.  It didn’t describe the pain.  But she knew from experience that saying ‘he’s dead’ didn’t get a good reaction.  

 

“Oh.  Oh, Mabel, I’m so sorry.”    
  
Mabel nodded, keeping her eyes on the counter.  She waited for the next question; it usually came, whether she wanted it to or not.

 

“How did it happen?”   

 

And there it was.  She’d only gotten past getting angry with people who asked in the last couple of years.  She didn’t even need to bite her tongue to keep from snapping anymore.  She just sighed.  “We went summering in a rural town up in Oregon.  He walked into the forest and never walked back out.”  

 

Silence fell between them, and Mabel finally glanced up.  Ms. Sprague looked stricken, her face pale and her eyes a little bewildered.  People got like this, sometimes, when they found out.  It was tiring.  She always felt like she had to cheer them up, after, which wasn’t fair.  They weren’t the ones who lost their twin.

 

Mabel held back another sigh.  She grasped for her notepad, and she asked, “can I take your order?”  

 

\---

 

Ms. Sprague ended up stuffing a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar on her way out, looking guilty when she did.  Mabel didn’t say anything, and she left the bill in there; they’d split up the tips after the shift was over.  

 

Aside from that, the day passed normally.  No more people from her past, thankfully.  Mabel took the time to make herself a horrible sugary concoction of a coffee drink, piling on syrups like the extra sugar would fix everything.  At the very least, it didn’t hurt.  

 

After her shift ended, she went out with a few friends from high school, though all they did was wander around the Berkeley marina.  Mabel harassed one of the adult helpers at Adventure Playground, which had been one of her favorite places to play when she was a kid, and ended up walking away with more information than she expected about how to volunteer.  She figured that maybe, if she wasn’t too busy during the school year, she might join up.  Nothing like helping little kids learn how to build dangerous-looking playground equipment with random scraps of wood and nails.  

 

It kept her busy, but there was something buzzing in the back of her mind.  She had been thinking about Gravity Falls so much the past few days, and she didn’t stop, not even when she was with her friends.  There was always something in the back of her head.  Remembering the diner, or the stupid games she and Dipper had played with Soos, or Dipper’s crush on Wendy.  Little flickers.

 

When her friends decided to head home, Mabel stayed in her car.  She sat in the parking lot for a while, staring at the bay, at the San Francisco skyline across the water.  It had been a clear day, and fog was starting to roll in on the other side of the Golden Gate bridge.  Sinking back in her seat, she ran her hands through her hair, trying to push away the memories.  

She jumped a little when her phone rang, and she answered without looking at who was calling.  “Hello?”  

 

“Hey, sweetie.”  It was her mom’s voice.  “Are you going to be home for dinner tonight?”  

 

If she went home, she’d get food for free.  But she wasn’t all that hungry.  There was a certain hollowness in her stomach that told her she probably wouldn’t enjoy whatever mom was cooking.  Especially considering her mother had been on a gluten free binge the past month.  

 

“No, I think I’m gonna be out for a while,” Mabel said.  She could hear the despondence in her voice, and she cringed.  

 

“Mabel, are you okay?”  The motherly concern was almost too much to bear.  It was delicate, un-prying, but still too much.  Mabel had gotten pretty sick of people asking that question a long time ago.  

 

“I’m fine, mom,” Mabel said.  “Just tired.”  She changed the subject as quickly as she could, hoping to avoid more of the worried mom voice.  “I ran into Ms. Sprague today!  From elementary school.  It was weird.”

 

“Oh. Was she the one with the hair?”  Mabel stayed silent, knowing her mom would continue - not like she knew how to respond to that question anyways, as far as she could remember all of her teachers had hair. But it was a mom question, it wasn’t meant to be answered.  “Right, right.  Ms. Sprague.  Well I’m sure she’s glad to see you all grown up.  Did you tell her you’re going to CCA?”  

 

“Yep.  I think she thought it was neat,” Mabel said.  

 

“Well, good,” her mother said.  There was a pause, and a clang that didn’t sound particularly good.  “Oh, darn it.  Okay, honey, well, stay safe.”

 

“I will, mom,” Mabel said.  “Go whip that kitchen into shape!”  

 

Her mom laughed, which finally made Mabel pull a little smile.  She hung up, and she sighed, staring across the bay again.  It occurred to her that Grunkle Stan hadn’t called her back today, even though he’d said he would.  Well, maybe the Mystery Shack had gotten busy.  

 

After a moment, Mabel checked her pockets.  She had just enough in loose dollars and change that she could pay the toll for the Bay Bridge.  With newfound resolve, she put her keys in the ignition, and she started driving towards the freeway.  

 

 


	4. In which there are ill omens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading, and everyone who's commented! You're the real heroes! Or something. Seriously though, you are all fabulous.

_The ocean roars._

_It’s a soothing sound.  It’s dark, full nightfall.  Mabel is standing in the sand, barefoot.  She pauses and looks back, and she wonders if it’s low tide, because the streetlights of the Great Highway are far far away.  She can’t even see where she’d parked her car, but she knows it’s there._

  
_Further down the beach there’s a bonfire.  She’s sure the police will come shut it down soon.  But it’s so distant she can barely hear the party; all she sees is the flickering light._

_She walks up the beach, going north.  The further north she goes, the further she is from the bonfire, and the more alone.  This far away from the streetlights, her eyes adjust a little, and she can see the beach stretching out before her.  It smells like seafoam, and in the darkness she can see spits of it, light gray against darker gray._

_She wishes that Dipper were here.  She always does.  They’d come here a few times as a family, but never at night, never this late.  There was a solitude here that Mabel wished she could share with her brother.  He’d have enjoyed it, even if he would’ve probably ruined it by bringing a flashlight so he could see.  Part of the fun of the beach at night was the emptiness, sight replaced with the feel of cold sand at your feet, the taste of ocean in the air, and the roar of the waves._

_She plops down in the sand, after a while, not caring that it’s cold.  She can only see the vague gesture of the water, but hearing it is just as good.  She sits, and she relaxes._

_Her heart starts to beat faster, and her breath becomes shorter.  For a moment she is terrified, and she doesn’t know why.  It’s such an odd sensation that she realizes in an instant that she is dreaming, and with that self-awareness comes movement from the sea, or perhaps it is the night sky, she can’t tell._

_Something moves in the inky blackness, giant arms that end in clawed hands, only visible because somehow they manage to be darker than the night around her.  Those hands crawl from the sea, arms stretching back into darkness, and they claw into the sand, one on either side of her.  She feels trapped, even though she could get up and run back up the beach. She feels like somehow she’d be caught.  If not this dream, then in the next, or the one after it._

_A gash opens in the sky, bloody red light leaking through.  It expands.  No, it opens, because it isn’t a gash in the sky, it’s a huge eye staring down at her, one manic slitted pupil roving around searching for something.  The red glow from it blinds her, for a moment._

WHERE ARE YOU, SHOOTING STAR?  

 

_It echoes in her head, three different tones at once.  She stares, her pulse throbbing in her throat, hands digging into the sand._

_That red eye opens wider, the pupil whirling around like it was dizzy, searching desperately._

WHERE.  ARE.  YOU?  

 

_It’s so loud that she wants to cover her ears, but she knows it wouldn’t drown anything out, because it was coming from inside her head.  It was her dream, after all._

_Maybe if she just told it, the dreams would stop._

_Taking a deep breath, Mabel stands.  She stares up at that eye in the sky, watching as it wheeled around._

_“I’m where I grew up,” she says.  “I’m in Piedmont, California.”_

_The pupil narrows, and it moves like a shot, staring straight at her.  The red glow fades, is blasted away with sharp white light._

_It says two more words, that voice in her head._

 

FOUND YOU.

_And then she wakes up._

\---

  
  


Mabel opened her eyes, and she choked.  

 

Somehow she’d twisted around in bed so she was sleeping face down, inhaling her own hair. She sat up, arms wheeling as she tried to get all of her hair out of her face.  She threw it all over her shoulder, hacking one intense doubled-over cough before she managed to start sucking in air properly again.  

 

This, she reflected, was the singular problem with having a luxurious mane of hair.  Occasionally choking on it in her sleep.  She combed her fingers through her hair, realizing they were shaking.  In fact, all of her was shaking.  She wasn’t sure if it was because of her near death hair experience or because of that stupid dream.  

 

She actually had gone out to Ocean Beach last night, and it had been almost the same as in her dream.  Minus the freaky eye in the sky and the hands made of inky blackness.  It wasn’t exactly a surprise that she’d dream of Ocean Beach, but the appearance of whatever it was that kept asking that question wasn’t even remotely comforting.  As she ran her hands through the tangles in her hair, she found more sand that had escaped her before.  She leaned over the bed, shaking it out over the floor and resolving to vacuum tomorrow.  Maybe tomorrow. Well, at some point.  

 

Mabel threw her legs over the edge of her bed, heaving a sigh and glowering at the wall.  She still felt a little shaky, and a little unnerved, but mostly she was annoyed.  It wasn’t scary anymore. It was just a big creepy voice asking where she was.  Three times in as many days. How many repetitions of this dream was she going to have to have before it stopped?  

 

She considered checking her phone.  Instead she glared at it too.  The clock on her bedside table told her the time - it was eight AM, earlier than she expected it to be.  She’d been out at the beach relatively late.  

 

Mabel stood, and she stretched, her back letting out a litany of pops.  “I’m getting old,” she grumbled.  Nearly eighteen, which felt ancient.  She scowled at her bed, and scowled at her phone, and decided to go shower.  She had to rinse the sand out of her hair anyways.  

 

She took longer in the shower than she should.  California and its constant state of drought would hate her for it later, but she really wanted to luxuriate, rinsing the bad the dream out of her head with cotton candy scented shampoo.  Maybe if she stopped thinking about it, she’d stop dreaming about it.  

 

By the end of the shower, she felt a little bit more ready to face the day.  She was startlingly awake, considering she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep, and she hoped it would last.  She toweled off and got dressed, then meandered back into her room.  It was her day off, and she planned on doing absolutely nothing but designing new costumes and watching TV.   

 

Of course, that was before she saw that she’d missed a call from Grunkle Stan.  Her first impulse was to call him back immediately, but she reined herself in, just barely.  Instead she put the phone on speaker, listening to the voicemail that Grunkle Stan had left.  

 

“Hey kiddo, sorry I didn’t call you back yesterday, Soos got stuck in the vending machine and we had to call somebody to get him out.”  Grunkle Stan sounded distracted, like he was barely paying attention to what he was saying.  “Gimme a call back when you get the chance.  Things got a little weird last night.”  

 

Mabel sat on her bed, dialing Grunkle Stan.  Weird sounded interesting.  Weird sounded like it would occupy her, at least for a little bit.

 

After three rings, Grunkle Stan finally picked up.  “Hello?”  

 

“Hey Grunkle Stan!  How’s it goin’?”  Mabel asked, curling a damp piece of hair around her finger.  She caught herself before she started to chew it, an old habit from when she’d been little.  

 

“Hey, sweetie,” Grunkle Stan said, before heaving a sigh.  “You get my message?”  

 

“Yeah.  You said something weird happened?”  Mabel asked.  “Did Waddles get into the liquor cabinet again?”  

 

“Eesh.  No.”  She could hear the shudder in Grunkle Stan’s voice.  “No.  There was an earthquake last night.  ‘Bout two in the morning.  Then the lake caught fire.”

 

Mabel stared blankly at the wall for a moment, processing that.  “The lake caught what?”  

 

“Yeah.  Guess some idiot’s gas tank ruptured.  They got it out but the whole lake was lit up for a while.  Oh!  And you remember Tate McGucket?”

 

Mabel furrowed her brows in thought, twisting her hair tighter around her finger.  “That was Old Man Mcgucket’s kid, right?  The guy who worked by the lake?”  

 

“Yup.  Nobody can find ‘im.  Guy just up and left.  Real weird.”  Grunkle Stan paused for a moment.  “Honestly, it got McGucket real concerned.  Don’t think I’ve seen him that un-crazy in years.  He was tryin’ to get a search party together, last I heard.  Soos joined up.  I think Wendy did too.”  

 

“Oh man,” Mabel murmured.  She finally gave in, putting that tendril of hair into her mouth to chew on.  She pulled her feet up on the bed, sitting with her knees against her chest.  “That’s crazy.  Poor Old Man McGucket.”

 

“Yeah.  Didn’t think somethin’ that stressful would knock him into shape.  If anything, I thought it would’ve made him more crazy.  But, hey.  At least the old man has something to focus on.”  Grunkle Stan sighed again.  

 

“Wow,” Mabel said.  Then, again, because she didn’t know what else to say.  “Wow.  Tell me if they find him, okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Grunkle Stan said.  There was a short pause, the line going dead between them.  Then Grunkle Stan cleared his throat.  “Oh, hey kid, I mentioned the ‘shooting star’ thing to Soos when he was stuck in the vending machine.  He said it rang a bell, but he couldn’t remember who called you that.  So, there you go.  You aren’t nuts.”  

 

That probably should have been reassuring, but instead it sent a little shiver down Mabel’s spine.  “Oh, good,” she said, spitting out the strand of hair she’d been chewing.  “Glad to hear it.  Don’t need to go more nuts than I already am! Crazy Mabel don’t need more crazy.”  

 

Grunkle Stan made a noise that might have been a laugh, but she could hear the concern in his voice when he spoke.  “You’re alright, kid.  Hey, when’s school starting up for you again?”  

 

It was a relatively transparent attempt to steer the conversation somewhere else, and Mabel was fine with it.  “The semester starts on August 31st,” Mabel said.  “I loaded up on classes, it’s going to be pretty busy.”

 

“You’ll knock ‘em dead, kiddo.  You got a talent for that weird fashion stuff.”  She could hear the smile in Grunkle Stan’s voice.  It made her smile too.

 

“Thanks, Grunkle Stan.  Hey, when d’you think you’ll let me redesign Mister Mystery?”  She teased.  “You’ve been keeping that old suit around for a while…”  

 

“Uh-uh, no way, kid.  Mister Mystery is a classic.  I ain’t changin’ a thing.”

 

“Aw, come on!  Even the eyepatch?  With glasses?  It’s so… hokey.”   She was mostly joking, now.  She’d actually always loved the eyepatch.  Though maybe with some glitter…

 

“‘Hokey’ is what the kids like!”  Grunkle Stan replied, voice defensive.  “at least I think it is… anyhow, me and the shack are doing fine!  No redesigns!”  

 

“We could put a question mark on the eyepatch,” Mabel said, making her voice sing-song.  

 

“I--actually… that’s not half bad….”  Grunkle Stan trailed off into unintelligible mumbling for a moment.  “We’ll talk about it.   _Maybe_.”  

 

“Maybe is just the beginnings of a yes,” Mabel said.  “A very slow yes.”  

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Grunkle Stan mumbled.  Then, he groaned.  “Ah, crap.  I gotta let you go.  A group just pulled up outside the shack, and with Soos gone I’m the only one holdin’ down the fort.  Talk to you later, sweetie, I got rubes to fleece.”  

 

“Happy fleecing,” Mabel said.  “Later, Grunkle Stan.  Take ‘em for all they’re worth!”  

 

“You know it!”  With that, Grunkle Stan hung up.  Mabel cradled the phone in her lap for a minute, just thinking about what he’d told her.  She was far too far away to even consider helping, but her heart went out to all the people in Gravity Falls.  Oregon wasn’t as used to earthquakes, and putting out a flaming lake couldn’t have been easy.  She wondered if emergency vehicles had to come in from other towns, or Gravity Falls’ exceptionally tiny emergency response team had handled it all.  

 

And Old Man McGucket… she didn’t even want to think about it.  Family going missing was a terrible thing to deal with.  Even though Tate McGucket was a grown man and could probably take care of himself, Mabel hoped they found him, and soon.  

 

She sat on her bed for a little longer.  She sighed, gazing at Dipper’s empty bed on the other side of the room.  

 

“This sucks,” she mumbled.  She chucked her phone at the other bed, and it bounced obligingly.  It didn’t even hit the wall.  “Why’d you have to walk away, huh?”  

 

The bed, of course, had no answers.  It never did.  And she’d spent a lot of time shouting at it in the past.  

 

Mabel stood, retrieving her phone, and then grabbing her box of markers from under her bed.  She had costume designs to work on, and a portfolio to build.  Time stopped for no one.  As much as, sometimes, she wished it did.  

 

 


	5. In which a window is broken

At this point, Mabel was expecting the dream.  

She stayed up pacing, preparing herself.  Something creepy would happen as soon as she shut her eyes, and something would ask her where she was, and then she’d wake up when she heard the words shooting star.  That’s how it worked.  That’s what it would be again.  She went to bed ready for it, determined to survive the dream.  She laid in bed, staring at the ceiling until finally her eyes drifted shut.   

When she woke up the next morning face down in a pool of her own drool, dream-free, it was anticlimactic.  She laid in bed for a little bit longer, feeling inexplicably like something had gone wrong.  After a bit she gave up, dragging herself out of bed and into the bathroom to shower.  

She wandered downstairs just in time for her father to give her a hug on the way out the door and reassure her that there was fresh ground espresso if she wanted to use the espresso machine.  It had been a recent acquisition, and every member of the Pines family had put it to good use.  She made herself eggs for breakfast, and she read the comic strips in the paper as Cupcakes begged for some of Mabel’s food.  

When she left the house for her shift at work, something caught her eye about a man standing across the street.  He had his hat pulled low, so low that it looked like it had to be difficult to see properly.  She shrugged mentally, climbing into her car and driving off.  She had bigger fish to fry, and crepes to deliver to hungry patrons.  

Work kept her busy, which was good.  She doodled a lot more of her combination animals in the margins of her notebook in between customers, and resolved to go to the Oakland zoo sometime soon for more inspiration.  There were only a few incredibly difficult customers; one who quizzed Mabel on all of the contents of the crepes one by one, looking for something to argue with, and another who complained that the salmon in his salmon crepe wasn’t sourced ethically enough.  Nothing she couldn’t handle.  

It was a Thursday evening, which meant that she’d have the house to herself.  Her parents went on dates every Thursday, something about keeping their marriage healthy.  Mabel encouraged it.  Tonight they were going to go into San Francisco to try out the indoor skydiving place, which Mabel had recommended; she had gone once for a friend’s birthday party, and it had been amazing.  

That meant that Mabel was going to pick up Thai food and watch terrible movies. The sorts of movies only she could enjoy.  She’d had one picked out for a while, a movie called Triple Star Academy Fight Club Alpha that had been banned in China and parts of the Middle East.  After the past few days, it would be nice to veg out and watch a ridiculous movie.  

After work, she picked up Thai food from her favorite place in Berkeley.  The house was empty when she got back, except for Cupcakes, who followed Mabel around as soon as she opened the door.  Mabel cued up the movie, then retreated into the kitchen to dump all the food she’d gotten into a huge bowl.  She planned to sit on the couch for the rest of the night and avoid everything.  

She had just dumped all of her curry on top of the rice she’d gotten when Cupcakes, who had been sitting at her feet, pinned his ears back and bolted out of the kitchen.  Mabel watched him go, and for a moment she wondered if this was an earthquake thing and she should go stand in a doorway for safety’s sake.  

Then she heard it.  It was a scratching, like somebody dragging their fingernails over a window.  It made her shudder, but before she could decide what to do that sound was followed by a much louder crack.  

For a moment she was torn between reaching for her phone or for the nearest thing that could be considered a weapon.  Then she remembered she’d dumped her phone, wallet and keys on the coffee table in the living room, and with a hissed “darn!” she leapt for the cast iron pan that lived on the stove.  

Another splintering crack followed the first one, the sound of glass finally breaking.  Mabel could feel her pulse in her teeth, and she crept towards the living room, the cast iron frying pan clutched tight in her hands.  

She peered around the edge of the doorframe. Part of her was still hoping it might be an unusually rambunctious, raccoon instead of the much more likely burglar.  But she wasn’t so lucky.  

Their living room had once had big picture windows overlooking their backyard.  Not anymore; one of those windows was smashed through, glass pebbles scattered across the carpet and big jagged bits still sticking in the frames.  The man that had come through the window stood, dusting off knuckles that were covered in blood and adjusting his hat.  His hat, pulled too low over his eyes.    
  
Mabel shuddered.  She remembered him.  He’d been across the street when she’d left for work this morning.  Had he been casing their house?  Planning on breaking in?  

She bit her lip, leaning against the wall.  With him in the living room, she couldn’t get to her phone to call the police, and the only landline was in her dad’s study, which was on the other side of the house.   _“Darn,_ ” she hissed again, under her breath.  

_“Shooting Sta-a-ar…”_

__

The words felt like being dunked into a pool full of ice water.  Her heart stuttered in her chest, and her hands started to shake.  No.  Who was this?  This couldn’t be happening.  Was it another dream?  Oh please, let it be another dream.  She pinched herself, hoping it would do something, hoping she would wake up.  All she got for the effort was a sharp jolt of pain and a mark that would probably bruise later.  

“Come out, come out, wherever you are… I know you’re here.”  She could hear the man’s shoes crunch on glass, and she slipped deeper into the kitchen, keeping her back against the wall.  She held her breath, and she tightened her grip on the frying pan, hoping that would keep them from shaking so noticeably.  It sounded like he was coming closer.  He was definitely, definitely coming closer.  

She was somewhat prepared - and not even remotely prepared, at the same time - when the man stuck his head into the kitchen.  They made eye contact, just for a moment, and it made Mabel’s heart skip a beat - the grin on his face made her want to scream.  

So she did, swinging the frying pan with everything she had.  

In an instant the grin dropped off of the man’s face, and his eyes went wide.  He yelped and danced away, the frying pan missing him by a hair’s breadth.  

“Who are you?!”  Mabel shouted, stepping forwards and swinging the frying pan again, like an uppercut.  She was fairly certain she nicked his nose, and it caught the brim of his hat, knocking it flying.   “Get out of my house you creep!”  

The man stumbled back, landing hard on the ground.  Even so that didn’t seem to stop him.  He looked up again, eyes wide and manic, and another grin tearing across his face.  “What, you don’t recognize me?”  

Mabel stopped for half a second, breath coming in panicky little gasps.  She had the frying pan above her head, ready to come down and concuss the living daylights out of whoever this is.  But, now that he said it…

No, it couldn’t be.  He was missing.  He was supposed to be in Oregon.  But the nose was right, and the hair...

“Tate McGucket?!”  She shrieked.  

The grin fell off of the man’s face like she’d insulted his ancestry. “No!”  

He moved, faster than she thought he could.  He hopped to his feet, reaching up and grabbing her wrists in one smooth motion, keeping the frying pan from coming down and braining him.  In half a second, the manic grin was back, twisting his face.  And for a moment, just a moment, Mabel was really sure there was something wrong with his eyes.   

“Take a closer look, Shooting Star,” he hissed.  

Mabel didn’t bother.  She brought her knee up, hitting him in the groin so hard that she wondered if she’d displaced her kneecap.  The squeaky noise that came out of the man - that came out of Tate - was high enough that it probably had jumped into the register that only dogs could hear, and he released her, falling over onto the ground.   

She didn’t stick around to kick him while he was down, though she wouldn’t have minded it.  She ran - well, more like hobbled, her knee really hurt now - over to the coffee table, and she made a wild grasp for her keys.  The metal bit into her hand, but there was no time to wait; she left her phone and wallet, dropped the frying pan, and ran for the door.  

She burst out of the front door and didn’t bother closing it behind her.  She had one goal, and that was to get to her car.  If she got to her car she could get away, go find a cop and report everything herself.  

She slid to a stop in the driveway, hands shaking so hard that she nearly dropped her keys as she tried to get them in the lock.  She wanted to curse, couldn’t even manage that, and then adrenaline surged as she heard footsteps running up behind her.  

He crashed into her, slamming her against the car, and she yelped.  It was all inarticulate noises and struggling, then; she elbowed him in the gut and he wheezed, but he managed to grab her wrists and shove her against the car again, holding her immobile for a moment.  

“Stop!”  he growled.  Mabel growled back, squirming and trying to land a kick in his shins.  She succeeded, but he didn’t let go.  “Shooting Star, you are making this way harder than it needs to -- _ow!_ Stop that!”  

“Never, you creep!”  Mabel snarled.  “You won’t get me!”  She ignored the fact that he did in fact have her pinned against the car, because if she thought about that too hard she’d probably panic.  

“Honestly, I am _insulted_ you forgot about me,” he snapped, like she hadn’t spoken at all.  “All of that, all that time, and you _forget?_!  I am disappointed, Shooting Star, completely disappointed!”  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”  Mabel started twisting again, trying to get her hands free.  His grip on her wrists was starting to loosen, slick with the blood from his knuckles.  “Get off of me!”  

She didn’t expect it when he dropped her wrists.  She also didn’t expect it when he grabbed her shoulders, twisting her around and slamming her back against her car.  Now they were face to face, and that was worse because the glare he was giving her looked like it could melt steel.  

“You need to remember me,” he snarled, and as he did his eyes changed. She thought they had been normal before but now she couldn't un-see how wrong they were.  The pupils weren’t right. They were split, elongated slits in his eyes, and they were staring into her soul.  Like lizard eyes but worse, somehow, for being in a person's face.  Mabel wasn’t even sure how she managed, but she tried to skitter backwards onto the roof of her car, her breath catching.  

There was a long moment of silence, then.  He stared at her.  She stared at him, a scream dead in her throat.  She was strangely aware of how they were both breathing hard from that stupid struggle, the only sound on the street. Some part of her really wished someone walking their dog would go by and see there was something weird going on.  

Then those pupils shrunk back to normal - well, more normal, less noticeable - and he tilted his head to the side, scowling.  “...Nothing?”

His grip loosened.  Mabel took that opportunity to reach out, putting her hand on his throat and shoving back.  It startled him - it - whatever it was that was in front of her - and he made a choked sound, letting go of her. She thought about fighting back more, but something in her wasn’t working right.  Shock, probably.  She turned away and walked inside again, keys in hand.  

It felt like there was cotton in her ears.  She didn’t really hear anything, wandering back through the house and sitting down on the couch.  She stood up again when she heard the front door slam, dropping her keys on the couch and raking her hands through her hair.  The thing that looked like Tate McGucket was standing just inside, that stupid grin on its face again.  

Finally, her throat started to work again.  “What was that?!”  She screeched.  “You-- and the eyes -- and why did you break into my _house_ \--”

“Hey, it wasn’t my first choice!”  Tate’s body said, giving a theatrical shrug.  “Not my fault you Pines keep all your doors and windows locked!”  

Mabel couldn’t think of a rebuttal to that that made sense, so she just pointed at the thing in Tate’s body and made a loud angry sound.  She turned away, sitting back on the couch for the second time, and something in her broke when she saw that her stupid movie was still waiting on the pause screen, after all of that.  A hysterical little giggle escaped her, and she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and staring at the TV screen.  

“Grunkle Stan was totally wrong.  I am completely nuts.  This is completely nuts!”  She giggled, burying her face in her knees.  Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized it was definitely shock.  

She jumped and screeched again when she felt whatever it was sit on the couch next to her.  That grin was still on Tate’s body’s face, and he flopped onto the couch like he was perfectly at home, throwing an arm over the back and a foot on the coffee table.   

“Nah, Star, other way around!  You’re waking up to all the crazy stuff you forgot!  In a way, you’re getting _more_ sane!”  

Once again, Mabel couldn’t quite verbalize all of the ways that was wrong, so she just hissed at the thing next to her.  It made him laugh.  It was a crazy laugh, maniacal.    
  


And out of all things, _that_ sounded familiar.  

She froze again, staring at him.  It.  Whatever it was.  Something itched in the back of her brain.  Like forgetting a word, she knew that she had known something once, but right now she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was.  It made her want to tear her hair out.    
  


Honestly, all of this made her want to tear her hair out.  

“What am I going to do about the window?!”  She demanded, waving an arm at the shattered glass all over the floor.  The thing in Tate’s body made a show of looking concerned, leaning out to stare at the wreckage.  

After a moment it shrugged, folding its arms behind its head.   “It’s not my window, Shooting Star, you figure it out!”  

“ _You broke it!_ ”  She snarled.  Then, taking a deep breath, Mabel put her hands on her forehead.  It was a struggle, but she had to think.  First things first.  “What are you?”  

“See, Shooting Star, this is why I picked you, you recover fast!”  The thing said.  It turned, reaching out a hand.  “I’m Bill Cipher!  They call me a demon!  Temporarily borrowing this puppet.  I dress much better in person.”

With that name came the brain itch again, and Mabel kept her hands to herself.  There were multitudes of reasons that she didn’t want to shake his hand, but the brain itch told her it probably wasn't a good idea. 

“What do you mean, picked me?”  She demanded.  Then her heart jumped again, and she launched herself off the couch, taking two glass-crunching steps away.  If it was a demon, then this wouldn’t be one hundred percent a crazy question.  “Were you the thing in my dreams?!”  

The thing in Tate’s body - what had he called himself, Bill? - pointed at her with a finger gun, winking.  “Hole in one, Shooting Star!  You got me.  I had to figure out where you were!”  

Mabel had to convince herself not to pull out a chunk of hair. Hers or his, she hadn’t decided.  “Why?”

“Because I need your help!  And I don’t admit that lightly.”  Bill shrugged.  “It’s kind of a whole big demon thing.  I can’t believe you forgot me!  That means I’m going to have to explain everything, and that’s a real bore.”  

“Stop saying that!”  Mabel snapped, stalking in an angry little circle.  “Or - or tell me what it means!  What do you mean, forgot you?”  She had a good idea.  Assuming that she wasn’t having some kind of psychotic episode, the itchy feeling in the back of her head was her trying to remember something.  Something she didn’t even realize she’d forgotten.  

“What do you think, kid?  Somebody made you forget.”  When she turned around, the demon in Tate Mcgucket had stood up too, and he was a lot closer than she’d expected him to be.  She jumped a little, taking a reflexive step back, and the grin on Tate’s face got sharper, more feral.  “I got a good idea who, too.  Bet there’s a lot of things you don’t remember about that summer in Gravity Falls, right, Shooting Star?”  

Mabel’s voice died in her throat.  She wanted to ask what he was talking about, and some part of her already knew that he was right.  That itch grew, clamoring for attention.  Memories nearly formed, the vaguest ideas trying to come to life, like trying to remember a fairytale she'd been told when she was four.  The shape of it was almost there, but she couldn’t remember the details, couldn’t remember names or faces.  

But before anything coalesced, she heard them, distant at first.  Police sirens.  It wasn’t unusual to hear, except they were getting louder.   

Mabel dodged around Tate McGucket’s body, stumbling over to the front windows.  She pulled aside the curtain just in time to see a police cruiser pull up at the end of the driveway.  

“Now that sounds like my cue to leave!”  Bill’s voice said.  “But don’t worry, I’ll be around - we’ve got unfinished business.  Until then, I’ll be watching….”  

Mabel turned to ask what the hell he was talking about - and at this point, she was just about ready to actually swear.  She turned just in time to watch Tate McGucket’s body crumple to the floor.  A shadow flickered across the room, something vaguely triangular in shape, and then, nothing.  

“Darn.”  Mabel stared at Tate McGucket’s unconscious body.  This was going to be fun to explain to the cops.  


	6. In Which There Is A Twist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! The fanfic train is still going! I'm sorry for the long hiatus but in the words of Jeff Goldblum, life, uh, finds a way. And what I mean by that is it finds a way to GET in the way. I apologize for the long wait from the deepest gloomiest parts of my soul, and with no further ado, let's get back to the story...

Tate McGucket stayed unconscious for the entirety of the time that Mabel was talking to the police.  

 

She wasn’t really sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it did make it a whole lot easier to lie through her teeth.  She was glad that she’d gotten some tips and tricks for lying out of Grunkle Stan when she’d been having her tough years in high school; it saved her grade in Spanish when she’d convinced her teacher that her parents were getting a divorce, and it saved her now, when she wove a story about how she’d nearly been burgled by some unknown assailant when Tate appeared out of nowhere, fought the burglar until he’d been kicked through the window, and passed out as the burglar ran away.  

 

It was a thin lie, but considering the only witness had been the neighbor calling in a noise complaint, it managed to get by.  Nobody had seen that it was only Tate.  Or Tate possessed by some creepy demon.  Or whatever the hell had just happened.  

 

The police took her statement and called an ambulance for Tate.  They had strapped him to a stretcher and were carting him out of the Pines household when Mabel’s parents showed up.  At that point, Mabel wanted to give in to defeat, crawl upstairs and go to bed.  Instead she had to spend the next half hour reassuring her parents that she was fine, that she wasn’t horribly traumatized, and that everything would be okay.  More lying to finish up the night.  She was going to be so good at lying.  

 

At about eleven, the police finally left.  The ambulance with Tate McGucket had gone hours ago.  Mabel took the time to put saran wrap over her thai food and put it in the fridge for the next day, and she tried to vacuum up the glass, but her mother dragged her away as her father awkwardly tried to cover the broken window with plywood.  

 

“Honey, you should go to bed,” her mother said, smoothing her hair away from her face.  There was worry in her mother’s eyes, though she forced a smile for Mabel’s sake.  “You look exhausted, and we can handle it.  Go get some sleep, okay?”  

 

“Okay, mom,” Mabel mumbled, pulling away.  Sleep did sound good.  It might help her process everything that had happened.  

 

It wasn’t until she had showered - for the second time, because after that fight with Tate McGucket’s possessed body, she  _ really _ needed a shower - and gotten into bed that she realized she might have another dream.   She stared at the ceiling for a long while, dreading it.  She didn’t want to dream about demons or being called shooting star or anything.  She wanted some nice, normal sleep for once.  

 

She tried to stay awake for as long as possible, but there was only so much time she could spend staring at the ceiling in the dark.  She drifted off before long, hoping against hope that she’d be left alone.  

 

\---

She opened her eyes, and everything was gray.  

 

Mabel groaned.  She grabbed another pillow - also gray - and held it over her face, hoping that would make everything go away.  Maybe it was a hallucination.  Maybe she’d just gone colorblind!  There were plenty of reasons the world could be gray.  

 

“Suffocation!  Good choice, but you can’t die from that here - you’re in the mindscape!”  

 

The voice was shrill and annoying, and even though Mabel had only heard him using Tate McGucket’s voice box, that itchy part of her brain knew exactly who it was.  

 

“Leave me alone to sleep,” Mabel said, throwing the pillow in her hands in the general direction of the voice.  She rolled over, facing the wall and glowering.  

 

Her glower was to no avail.  She shrieked when a glowing triangle of light flickered up from the crack between her bed and the wall, scrambling backwards and falling out of her bed.  

 

That glowing triangle opened one huge, glowing eye, and half a second later sprouted legs, arms and a top hat.  The narrow pupil in that eye focused on her, and she had the feeling that if the triangle had a mouth instead of a bowtie, it would be grinning at her.  

 

Mabel huffed, crossing her arms and glaring up at it from the floor.  “What do you want?”  It was probably not the greatest idea to back-sass a demon right after meeting it, but Mabel didn’t really care.  She wanted to go back to sleep.  Real sleep, not whatever this was.  

 

“I just wanted to take a look in your head!”  Bill said.  His triangular body flickered a little every time he spoke, and he held out a hand, a cane materializing just above and dropping into his tiny palm.  He started spinning it idly.  “Figured it might be easier just to unlock those pesky memories - I mean, it’s a whole lotta story to go over!” 

 

Mabel sat up straight, remembering how Tate McGucket had collapsed after Bill left his mind.  “Uh-uh, no way!  There’s no way I’m letting a giant - giant  _ dorito chip _ in my head!”  

 

Bill dropped the cane, and it vanished in a flicker of light.  He shrugged, an extra theatrical shrug now that he didn’t have shoulders to utilize.  “Oh calm down, Shooting Star, it’s not like I’m going to break you!  I’ll put it all back together, and it’ll even make sense!  Now let me just have a look see--” 

 

He floated closer, that single eye going wide and flashing a bright blue.  Mabel tried to skitter backwards on the carpet, but before she could those tiny hands the colors of shadow were reaching for her head.  He touched her forehead, and for a moment there was a flash of cool blue fire across her face.  

 

Then that blue fire was burnt away by a bright flash of pink.  With that flash of neon pink came pain, and Mabel winced back, sucking in a sharp breath.  She sensed more than saw when Bill jerked away too. “Whoa whoa whoa-- _ shit _ !”

 

Mabel blinked away the pink.  It still flickered, like little glistening bubbles, at the edge of her vision, but now she could see.  Bill was hovering just above her bed, and he was shaking his hands like he’d been burned, hissing something under his breath.  His eye glanced over at her, narrowing in a frown, and his whole body flared red for a moment.   She didn’t need the itch in the back of her mind to tell her that was a bad sign.  

 

“I didn’t do anything, you burnt  _ yourself _ , stupid-head!”  Mabel said, scooting backwards until her back ended up against the frame of Dipper’s bed.  

 

“No,” Bill said, voice so transparently annoyed that it was almost shocking.  “ _ She _ did.  And she did a number on you.”  

 

Mabel blinked again.  “What?”  

 

Bill rubbed his hand like it still hurt.  If a triangle could look disgruntled, he would.  “You got a nasty killswitch on that pretty little head of yours, kid.  I try to make you remember what you forgot, you end up with the total cognitive function of a potted plant.”  

 

Mabel shuddered.  She took a deep breath.  Even though she didn’t trust Bill as far as she could throw him - no, that was a bad analogy, as a triangle he looked very throwable - even if she didn’t trust him, she knew he was right when he said she’d forgotten something important.  And the idea of never being able to remember what that was, well.  That was terrifying.   “So if I try to remember on my own, will I…?”  

 

Bill reached out an arm, and in a flash he was twirling that cane again.  “Nah, it’s to keep somebody like me out.  If you dismantle it from the inside, you  _ proooobably _ will keep most of your mental facilities intact.”  

 

“Probably?!”  Mabel repeated, incredulous.  

 

With another theatrical shrug, Bill floated down to sit on her bed.  If a triangle could even sit.  “Hey, I didn’t make the spell!  I don’t know the particularities!  Only that it’s a great big  _ keep out _ sign for your favorite demon.  But it doesn’t look like it’ll self destruct if you remember on your own.”  

 

Mabel scowled.  She considered pointing out that he was also her least favorite demon, since as far as she could remember, there was only one demon she knew and that was him.   Instead, something he said earlier caught her interest.  “Wait, who  _ did _ make the spell?”  

 

His eye narrowed, the sidelong pupil dancing over the room like he was checking the corners for something.  “Look Star, I’m not gonna say her name, ‘cuz here she might hear me.  But she’s the reason we’re in this mess in the first place.  She’s why I need you around.” 

 

The scowl didn’t fade, and Mabel crossed her arms, glowering at the glowing triangle on her bed.  “That was barely an answer!  And I’m not going to help you!  All you did was break into my house and scare the living daylights out of me!  I have no reason to at all!”

 

It was startling how much Bill could emote, all things considered.  His eye crinkled up, and he practically radiated smugness.  “Oh, I don’t know about that, I think you have a pretty good reason…” 

 

“Yeah?”  Mabel said.  “Well, I don’t know it!  Or maybe I don’t  _ remember _ .”  She stuck her nose in the air, huffing.  For half a moment she realized how ridiculous all of this was, and she wondered if she’d wake up and everything in the past couple of days would be a dream.  Tate McGucket, Bill, all of it.  It might be better if it was.

 

Bill started laughing.  “Trying to play tough, huh?  We’ll see how that works out for you, Shooting Star.”  He flickered out of existence, for half a moment.  Mabel stared at the empty space on her bed, then stood, glancing around the room.  A chill went down her spine when she turned around; there he was, the stupid little isosceles jerk, lounging on Dipper’s bed.  

 

The chill turned into a cold fury, and Mabel grabbed the pillow off of her bed, turning around and throwing it at Bill.  She made a wordless, angry noise when his body expanded, a hole appearing where his bow tie had been and engulfing her pillow.   “Get off of the bed!  Now, Bill!”

 

That irritating laughter echoed through her room again.   “Why should I?  Nobody’s using it!”  

 

“Just get off!”  She scrambled around, looking for something else to throw.  She found one of her stitched together plush animal monstrosities, a horse with the face of a baboon, and she threw it as hard as she could.  “That belonged to my brother!”  

 

Bill floated off the bed at the last second, avoiding the baborse plush.  He made a show of inspecting the nonexistent fingernails on his creepy tiny hands.  “‘Belonged’, eh?  You’re acting like Pine Tree’s dead!”  

 

Mabel didn’t question the term, especially since he’d been exclusively referring to her as Shooting Star.  She wanted to strangle him.  She wanted to beat him over the head with that stupid cane, except it had vanished when he’d floated up.  For a moment she was painfully, embarrassingly aware that she was tearing up.  

 

“Because he  _ is _ !” she snapped, hands balling into fists at her sides.  

 

Bill didn’t react.  Didn’t change colors, didn’t even look up from examining his stupid tiny fingers.  

 

“Is he?  Do you  _ know _ ?”  

 

“Yes!”  Mabel screamed at him.  

 

Then that itch in the back of her mind started to clamor.  She sucked in a sharp breath.  Her knees were starting to shake.  No, it had to be some trick, or a joke, or something.  Bill was a demon and he was proud of it.  Demons lied, right?   

 

Dipper got lost.  Dipper walked into the forest, and he died.  He’d been gone for days.  Or, they told her he had. They told her they’d searched the forest, put out APBs to every surrounding county.  They had never found him.

 

But they’d also never found a body.  

 

“What are you saying?”  She asked, hating the way that her voice trembled.  “You’re lying.  You’re lying, he  _ can’t _ be alive.  He would have come back!”  

 

Finally, Bill looked at her.  “Unless he couldn’t.”  

 

Mabel bit her lip.  She sat down on her bed before her knees did her the disservice of giving out.  Her eyes were starting to cloud up again, unshed tears filling her vision.  No.  That couldn’t be right.  A brilliant ray of hope bloomed in her chest, and just as quickly she blocked it out; no. No, no, no.  She’d spent too long hoping that somebody would find him and they’d get a call, back during the first year.  Even when she’d been at the funeral, there was a little part of her hoping that somebody would find Dipper and bring him back.  That little ray of hope had flickered, and dimmed, and died in the dark.   She couldn’t start hoping again.  Not because of some dream.     
  
Not because of some demon.  

 

“You’re lying,” Mabel said again, but there wasn’t any fight behind it.  She blinked, and tears slid out of her eyes.  Maybe it was just because it was a dream, but they flowed up instead of down, her tears floating towards the ceiling.  She jammed the heels of her hands against her eyes, grinding away the tears.   “Demons lie.  That’s what they do.” 

 

“Oh, sure we do!”  When she looked up, Bill was floating right in front of her, startlingly close.  She wanted to shove him away, but considering what happened to her pillow - which still hadn’t reappeared - she had the feeling she’d just sink through him if she tried.  “But I’m not lying about this!  Pine Tree’s alive and well.  Well, mostly.  And I can help you get him back!  If you help me.”  

 

Her heart leapt, and once again she pushed away that flicker of hope.  

 

“Prove it,” she said.  

 

“What?”  Bill floated back a little, like he was surprised.  

 

“If you can prove it - and not just say weird cryptic things in a dream - then I’ll help you.”  She gritted her teeth, making her knees cooperate as she stood.  She glared down at Bill.  “Until then, no deal.”  

 

Bill’s eye narrowed.  “What, do you want me to show you?”  The yellow of his body faded away, a frantic flicker of images rocketing across his shape.  There was Dipper, and there she was too, and there was the Mystery Shack for a brief moment and a flicker of Stan pushing aside the vending machine in the gift shop in the middle of the night.  “I can show you lots of things, Shooting Star--”  

 

Mabel turned her head and crossed her arms.  “Nope,” she replied.  “You expect me to trust you?  When you’re in my dreams messing with my head?  Come on!”

 

Bill zipped in front of her, a yellow streak across the gray haze of her dream.  “Come on, kid!  I don’t have time for this, and neither do you!  Do you want your brother to die?”  

 

It made something inside her want to scream.  She bit the inside of her cheek, glaring at the demon again.  “Figure it out!”  She snapped.  “If you don’t you’re not getting my help!”  

 

Bill flickered red, eye narrowing sharply.  “You’re going to abandon him like that?  That’s cold, Shooting Star.  And to think about how much he sacrificed for you!  To keep you safe!”  

 

It hurt.  It really hurt.  The idea that Dipper could be somewhere, in pain, and she couldn’t save him… was choosing not to save him.  Mabel swallowed hard, hesitating just a moment.  The desire to believe was so strong, it was nearly overpowering.  

 

But after Dipper had disappeared, she’d had to grow up.  She had to take care of herself, without her nerdy smarter brother taking care of her.  It had been tough, and she’d been taken advantage of a couple of times.  She wouldn’t be again.  Not if the stakes really were this high.  

 

“For all I know you’re just telling me he’s alive, and when I do whatever you want me to do you’ll reveal he was dead all along,” Mabel said.  “Give me proof, or get somebody else to help you.”  

 

Bill shifted.  She didn’t expect him to grow bigger than her.  Suddenly he was taking up half the room, glowing a dull cherry red, like overheated metal.  His voice screamed through her head, five different tones all at once.    _ THERE IS NO ONE ELSE.  _

 

It echoed through the room, made everything begin to shake.  Her posters started coming loose from the walls, and a picture frame fell off her dresser and hit the floor. It was like an earthquake, the floor rolling underneath her. It was terrifying, and for a moment Mabel was afraid.   

 

Still, she bit back the fear.  This was a dream; not just any dream,  _ her _ dream.  She didn’t have to be afraid.  Or at least, she didn’t think she had to.  “Stop throwing temper tantrums!”  She screamed back.  “You’re awfully immature for a demon!”  

 

The rumbling stopped.  Bill’s pupil shrunk, and he stared directly at her, a handful of silent seconds ticking by.    _ RRAGH! _  He snarled, after a moment, and vanished.  Mabel had a moment to stand alone in the gray room, and then everything cracked, like glass shattering.  The world fell away, and she was plunged into nothingness.  

 


	7. In which there is a cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of you are wonderful beings, and I feel the need to thank all of you very much for continuing to read despite my slow, plodding pace of writing <3

Her parents took her out to breakfast the next morning.  

 

They were both supposed to be at work, but her father called out sick and her mom decided to go into the office a few hours later than usual.  It was an awkward, stilted sort of breakfast; the conversation flowed smoothly, but it was all casual things.  Conversations about work, school, and the traffic, vague inquiries into Mabel’s friends’ wellbeing. 

 

They were all, very carefully, avoiding the topic of the break-in last night.  For the moment, Mabel was fine with that.  It had been jarring enough to go downstairs and see that the window to the back yard covered with plywood.  If the window was broken, it meant that it couldn’t be a dream.  Mabel definitely preferred stilted smalltalk over burnt coffee and pancakes to talking about the break-in.  

 

After breakfast, she went home with her father.  Her mother went off to work, and Mabel made herself and her dad a pair of lattes while he searched for someone who could come replace the broken window.   She covered both with a rainbow of sprinkles before slipping out into the backyard, coffee mug in hand.  She escaped unnoticed; her dad was conversing loudly on the phone, pacing in the kitchen and gesticulating with his own coffee cup.  

 

Their back yard was small, but filled with plant life.  They’d managed to nurse the plants through the drought.  They weren’t the healthiest they’d ever been, but they weren’t dead, either.  She sat on the wicker porch furniture, resting her coffee mug on her knees.  A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves, and Mabel stared at them.  For some reason, the theme song for Ducktective started to play in her head, and for the moment she welcomed it.  It drowned out any other thoughts rattling around in there.  

 

But she couldn’t avoid thinking about it forever.  

 

She looked down, glowering at the rainbow sprinkles on her latte.  More specifically, the yellow ones, because they were about the shade of yellow that that stupid evil triangle had been.  She started to twist a lock of hair around her finger, thinking.  Wishing she could remember more about that summer up in Gravity Falls.  It all seemed too crazy to be true; she’d wanted magic and adventure to be real for so long, and now that she’d grown up and given up, it burst into her life.  

 

And if magic existed… maybe there  _ was _ a way to bring Dipper back.  

 

It was a big if, though.   “Sure,” she mumbled to herself, sticking her hair into her mouth to gnaw on, “Tate broke in, but  _ possession?  _ Demonic possession?  I could still be having a psychotic break… Ugh.”   She sputtered, spitting her hair out of her mouth and taking a long rainbow sprinkled sip of latte.   She wished that she had someone here she could trust.  Someone who would hear her out, and then tell her if she was crazy or not.  Not a random psychologist.  

 

She was midway through another sip of latte when a thought occurred to her.  It took a bit of willpower to keep from spitting out her coffee, a thrill of trepidatious excitement rushing through her.  

 

Grunkle Stan had said that Soos remembered her nickname, the thing that Bill had kept calling her.  Shooting Star.  

 

Mabel nearly fumbled her coffee mug as she sprung out of her chair, grasping for her phone in her pocket.  She nearly fumbled that too, but after a wobbly unbalanced dance she unlocked her phone, calling Grunkle Stan’s number.  

 

He answered after two rings, and Mabel was so jittery with energy that she wasn’t even remotely soothed by his gruff greeting.  “Hey, kid, how’s it goin’--” 

 

“Grunkle Stan!  Hey!  Is Soos there?”  

 

“Soos?”  Grunkle Stan repeated, sounding a little disgruntled that he’d been interrupted.  “No, he’s still out searchin’ for McGucket’s kid--” 

 

“They don’t need to,” Mabel said, without thinking.  She stopped, wishing she could slap a hand over her mouth, but her other hand was holding her coffee and she really didn’t want to sock herself in the face with a mug.  “Er.  I mean.  Tate McGucket kind of showed up.  Here.  In California.  He’s in the hospital.”    
  
“What?”  

 

Mabel didn’t pause to explain more.  She had to forge forwards while she still had the courage, and heck, asking Grunkle Stan was as good a backup plan as anything.  “Hey, do you know anyone named Bill Cipher?”  

 

“ _ What?!”   _ She didn’t expect Grunkle Stan to sound quite as intensely shocked as he did.  There was a shuffle on his end of the line, and she waited, heart beating in her throat and her hand tight around the handle of her coffee mug.  “Wait, kid, hold on.  Back up a step.  Tate McGucket is in California?”  

 

“Yep,” Mabel said.  “Long story.  Anyhow.  Bill Cipher?”  She prompted.  

 

“Sounds like some trashy magician’s name,” Grunkle Stan grumbled, but there was something about the way he said it.  A pause before he spoke that was a little too long to fit the normal flow of conversation.  If she hadn’t gotten lying lessons from Grunkle Stan, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it.  “Look, I should probably call somebody, tell ‘em about Tate.  I gotta go, call you back.”  

 

“Grunkle Stan, wait--” she started, but before she could finish the sentence, he’d hung up on her.  Mabel pulled the phone away from her ear to stare incredulously at it.  Grunkle Stan had hung up on her.  He’d never done that before.  And that was saying something.  She’d heard him hang up on her dad and mom multiple times, and she’d heard stories of Stan leaving the phone off of the hook so Soos couldn’t call him, but he’d never done anything like that to her before now. 

 

She thumbed over to the redial button and brought the phone back to her ear.  She started to pace.  If he really was calling somebody, it would probably be busy, but the phone started to ring. It kept ringing until it went to voicemail, where Soos’s voice said ‘You reached Mr. Pines, dude, leave a message after the tone!’ and Mabel was met with a harsh beep.  

 

“Grunkle Stan, you  _ better _ call me back  _ as soon as possible!” _  She snapped, and she hung up.  Of course, only after shoving her phone into her pocket and throwing herself back into the wicker lawn furniture did she realize that Stan might not know how to check his voicemail.  She groaned.

 

Now she had more questions than when she started.  She sucked down half her sprinkly latte, glowering at anything in her view.  Stan was acting suspicious, and she didn’t like that.  Or… she paused with half a mouthful of latte, staring sightlessly at the sky.  Maybe she  _ did _ like that.  Or, if not like, at least felt slightly less crazy.  He’d only gotten weird when she’d said the name.   Bill Cipher.  

 

But how would Grunkle Stan know the demon?  Had he been keeping things from her?  All these years?  Mabel had to force herself to swallow, and she put the mug down onto the patio, getting up and beginning to pace once more.  More and more questions began to spring into her head, none of them comforting.  

 

As she paced, Cupcakes came up to the backyard door, pawing at the glass from the inside.  Mabel glanced at him, and with a sigh, she moved over, opening the door.  He slipped out, trotting into the yard and flopping onto the concrete.  She could still hear her dad arguing with the window repair guy deeper in the house.  

 

“Oh Cupcakes,” Mabel said, flopping into the chair once more.  “There are so many questions.  You have no questions.  You’re a cat.  I envy you.”  

 

Cupcakes looked up at her, purring as he laid out with his belly flat on the pavement.  She blinked, and she frowned, staring harder at her cat.  There was something off, a nagging sense of wrongness.    

 

Cupcakes had green eyes.  Or at least, he was supposed to.  He had, yesterday morning, when he’d been begging for her breakfast.  This Cupcakes, however, had bright yellow eyes.  Almost unnaturally yellow.  

 

Mabel sprung out of her chair, scooping up the cat and holding it eye to eye.  “ _ Get out of my cat!”   _ she snarled.  

 

If it was possible, Cupcakes managed to look even more smug than a cat normally could.   She nearly dropped him when a voice began to echo in her head.   _ “Took you long enough, Shooting Star!  What did ol’  _ Stan _ have to say about my name?”   _

 

She shook the cat, reminding herself to do it gently because, after all, it was her kitty.  Just temporarily inhabited by a triangle.  “You get out of my cat right now!  Out out  _ out!”  _

 

“ _ Can’t make me!”   _ Bill let his cat body hang limp in her grasp, paws dangling, that smug look still on his kitty face.  “ _ The old man make you believe me any more, kid?  We’re running short on time, here!”   _

 

Mabel crouched, giving Bill a narrow-eyed glare as she carefully set the cat down.  “This isn’t proof!”  she hissed.  “This is nothing!  I’m not making a deal with you!”  

 

“ _ You’ll regret it,”  _ Bill said, voice sing-song.  He shook himself and bounded off on his little cat paws.  Mabel snatched after him, unbalancing herself and sprawling out on the pavement.  She glared at him as he came back, sitting a few feet away and beginning to groom himself.  “ _ Just tell me when you’ve come to your senses; we’ll make a great team, you and me.”   _

 

“I really don’t like you right now,” Mabel said through gritted teeth.  “I really, really don’t like you.”  

 

“ _ Sure, kid, that’s what they all say!”   _ Bill stood, ears flicking towards one of the trees in the yard.  “ _ Hey, watch this - I’m going to catch a bird, like a real cat!”   _

 

Cupcakes had always been a fat indoor cat; Mabel had only seen him run when he’d been startled.  Bill, on the other hand, booked it, shooting across the yard like a gray streak.  Mabel watched him get partway up a tree and then fall with a heavy thud, and in the back of her mind she could hear him cackling.  Mabel stood, grabbing her coffee mug and going inside.  She made sure to slam the door extra hard when she did.  

 

\---

 

Mabel locked herself in her room and ignored the times that Bill came to her bedroom window as her cat.  On his own, Cupcakes had never found a way to make it onto the roof of the house - Bill apparently didn’t have the same problem.  She focused on knitting, working on the gloves she had planned for her friend Lin’s birthday.  Periodically she would hear Bill’s tiny cat feet running across the roof, and she started playing music off of her phone, drowning him out with that.  

 

The leaf pattern on the gloves kept her busy counting stitches, and the music kept her from overthinking anything.  She felt like she should be doing something more, but at this point she wanted to shut everything out.  Nothing was being helpful, everything was frustrating, and as much as she wanted to believe that there was some way to save Dipper, she just...couldn’t get her hopes up again.  Not so quickly. 

 

Her hands started to cramp after a while, and she put her knitting down, flexing her fingers.  She found herself staring at Dipper’s bed.  It was as undisturbed as she’d left it the last time she’d cleaned, but she could still imagine Bill sitting there.  Well, as much as a triangle could sit.  

 

She wasn’t even sure if he was  _ real _ .  This was stupid.  This was all so  _ stupid. _

 

Her music stalled.  She glowered at her phone, wondering what was wrong this time.  Then it started to ring, and she jumped, grabbing it off her bedside table.  

 

It was Grunkle Stan’s number, and Mabel answered without hesitation.  “Grunkle Stan, listen here...” she started, ready to bite his head off for hanging up on her.  

 

“Hey hambone,” came Soos’s voice.  “It’s me, not Stan.  How’s it goin’?”  

 

Mabel frowned.  “Uh, Soos?  Why’re you calling me on Grunkle Stan’s phone?”  

 

“Oh, he wanted me to get rid of the voicemail notification thingy, so I did.  But, eheh, you sounded pretty pissed in that voicemail you left!”  

 

Mabel sunk onto her bed, shoulder drooping.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I did, didn’t I?  Sorry, Soos.  It’s been...weird.”  She glanced at her window and shuddered when she found Bill sitting outside, watching her intently.  She turned away.  “Grunkle Stan hung up on me, for the first time.  Ever.  I guess it hurt my feelings.”  

 

“Aw, dude.  He did?”  Soos sounded equal parts surprised and sympathetic.  “Weird.  He’s gotten into, like, some kinda mood.  He’s been going through these old files all day.”  

 

“Old files?”  Mabel repeated.  That itch in the back of her brain was back, and she scowled.  “He  _ said _ he was going to tell everyone about Tate McGucket.”  

 

“Oh yeah dude, he did that too,” Soos said.  “Old Man McGucket was like, totally psyched.  I mean, totally worried, but totally psyched.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that not-crazy before. Some of the dudes who were in the search party got together and bought him a bus ticket so he could head down and pick up his kid.”

 

“That’s really nice of everyone,” Mabel said, cringing a little as she imagined Old Man McGucket seeing Tate in the hospital.  “It’s an expensive bus ticket.”  

 

“Yeah.  I bet that was super weird, when Tate showed up at your house,” Soos said with a vague sort of chuckle.  “So crazy.”  

 

“ _ Super _ crazy,” Mabel agreed.  She started winding hair around her fingers nervously.  “You have no idea, Soos.”  She paused, glaring at her bedroom door in order to keep herself from glancing out the window and at Bill inhabiting her poor innocent cat’s body.  She would bet money he was still sitting there, staring.  “Hey, Soos, can I ask you something?”  

 

“Shoot,” Soos said.  

 

“Does the name Bill Cipher ring a bell?”  Mabel asked, a little cautious.  She was desperately hoping Soos wouldn’t freak out like Stan had.  

 

For a moment the line was silent.  A little shiver crawled up Mabel’s spine, and for a wild moment she was sure that Soos would hang up on her too.  But then Soos let out a thoughtful hum on the other end of the line, and Mabel let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. 

 

“Yeah, kinda.  I can’t remember who he is, though.  Is he a video game character?  I kinda feel like he’s a video game character.  Does he have a super annoying laugh?”  

 

“Yes!”  Mabel jumped off the bed, starting to pace.  “I mean, he is, but, he isn’t, I mean--”  

 

“Whoa there, hambone.  What’s goin’ on over there?”  Soos asked.  “You sound kinda panicky-like.  Everything okay?”  

 

“No!”  Mabel said, throwing a hand in the air.  “Nothing’s okay!  I mean, it’s a little more okay, because you remember, but Grunkle Stan got all weird when I said the name and now--”  she stopped, finally daring a glare at the cat in the window.  Bill was still sitting there, tail flicking back and forth.  She got the feeling that if he could, he would be giving her a cheshire cat grin.  “Now.  Uh.  Well.”  

 

“What’s up, Mabel?”  Soos asked.  But, on the tail end of that, Mabel could hear Grunkle Stan shouting for Soos in the other room.  “Oh, uh, hold on a second.  Yes, Mr. Pines?”  

 

Mabel waited, listening to the shuffle on the other end of the line as Soos moved.  She could hear them talking, distantly, the words carrying over each other and turning to mush.  Even if she couldn’t pick out the words, she could hear when the tone changed; Soos said something, and Grunkle Stan’s voice got dark.  It almost sounded like the beginnings of an argument.  

 

Before Mabel could make sense of any of it, there was a quick couple of knocks at the door before the knob twisted and her father stuck his head in.  Mabel pulled the phone away from her ear.  

 

“Hey sweetie, sorry to interrupt,” her dad said, giving her an awkward little smile.  “I just wanted to give you a heads up - that guy from last night woke up.  He doesn’t remember a thing.  I’m planning on visiting him, to thank him for interrupting that burglary.  Do you want to come along?   

 

Mabel blinked, a little foggily.  It took a moment to recall Tate McGucket.  She’d been so focused on Bill, and whatever it was that was making her Grunkle act so cray-cray.  When it clicked together, her eyes widened.  “Oh.  Sure!  I mean.  Yeah!  Are we going now?”  

 

“I was thinking so,” her dad said.  He blinked, glancing over her shoulder.  “Oh, Mabel, honey, Cupcakes got up on the roof.  Open your window and let him in?  I don’t want to see him try and get down from there.”  

 

That was a good point.  Cupcakes had never been the most agile cat.  Even with Bill in control, Mabel didn’t trust him to get down in one piece.  Scratch that -  _ especially _ with Bill in control.  Mabel turned, and she glowered at the demon cat when she cracked open the window.  He squirmed inside, jumping from the window ledge to Dipper’s bed.  Mabel’s hand tightened around her phone, watching him curl up on the bed and knowing she couldn’t throw him off unless she wanted to look  _ really _ crazy.  

 

Not yet.  Really crazy Mabel would wait for just the right time to strike.  

 

“I can go now,” Mabel said, glaring at Bill.  He blinked at her slowly.  “In fact, that sounds  _ great _ .”  

  
Her conversation with Soos would just have to wait.  


	8. The One with a Hospital Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I apologize to anyone who had to read the format disaster that happened the first time I posted this. Thanks to bluecanary for pointing that out. That's what I get for posting in a hurry before I have to be out the door x_x Hopefully it's readable now! Love and smooches to all of you readers out there!

Hospitals were always so gloomy.  They tried, in their own way, to bring some sort of comforting air with them, but they never succeeded.  It was all pastels and abstract paintings of flowers and landscapes, with nurses rushing back and forth.  Mabel always wanted to cover everything in bright neon stickers.  Anything to keep the placid hospital decorations at bay.  

 

They’d checked in at the front desk, and now Mabel was trailing her dad, the visitor sticker stuck on her shirt.  They went through a series of rooms, got lost and ended up in pediatrics, and then were redirected to the area they were keeping Tate.     
  
She hadn’t said anything - because what could she say to her dad? - but she’d spent the entire drive to the hospital braiding and un-braiding her hair.  As soon as she’d stepped away from Bill and hung up on Soos, she realized how strange this would be.  What would she say to Tate?  What would he remember?  She was making herself more nervous the deeper they weaved into the hospital.  

 

Fortunately, Tate was alone in his hospital room.  He was sitting up, his eyes focused on the television in the corner.  He blinked when they came in, hitting the mute button on the remote and turning to look at the two of them.  

 

“Hey, uh, sorry to intrude,” Mabel’s dad spoke, breaking the silence.  “I’m James Pines, and this is Mabel, my daughter.”  

 

Tate’s expression changed, something that was not quite a smile crossing his face.  “Oh, hello.  I guess you know me, then.”  It might have been her imagination, but Mabel thought that he might have stared at her a little longer than he should have.  It didn’t matter much, though; he averted his eyes quick.  “I can’t remember too much of last night.”

 

“Concussion?” Mabel’s dad asked.  Tate nodded gingerly, like it hurt to do so.  “Well, we’ll get out of your hair quick, then.  I just -  _ we _ just wanted to come down and thank you for all that you did. If you hadn’t shown up… well, I don’t know what could’ve happened, and I don’t want to think about it.”   He reached over, squeezing Mabel’s shoulder.  Mabel tried not to shudder.  She didn’t like lying to her parents.  

 

Once again Tate’s eyes lanced over to Mabel, a strange look crossing his face.  “Glad to help,” he said, voice rough.  This time, he didn’t look away.  Mabel fought the urge to start gnawing on a twist of hair, nervousness wriggling in her gut.  

 

“Do you have someone coming down from Oregon?”  Mabel’s dad asked, and Mabel shrugged out from beneath his arm.  He didn’t really seem to notice.  “Family to take care of you?”  

 

“His dad’s coming down,” Mabel murmured.  Her ears went hot when both the men focused on her.  “Grunkle Stan said some people got together and got him a bus ticket, and he’s on his way.”  

 

“Ah, dad…”  Tate’s lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a frown.  He looked down at the bedsheet, then, after a moment, up to Mabel’s dad.  “Hey, I’m sorry, but - they don’t want me getting up, I’ve got cash, would you mind getting me a coffee?  I would, but I’m hooked up to a couple machines…”  

 

“Oh!  Of course.  Don’t worry about it, this one’s on me.”  Mabel’s dad waved his arms in the air like he was brushing off the suggestion that he’d take Tate’s money.  “I’ll be right back.  Let you two talk a little.”   On his way out, he nudged Mabel gently with his elbow, and she made herself give him a smile.  She knew it didn’t look right, but it was fast enough that her dad didn’t notice. 

 

She stood across the room, fighting the urge to fiddle with her hair.  For the moment it was silent.  She didn’t know what to say.  Usually she never had a problem with what to say, she could blather with the best of them, but this… this was different.  

 

"How's my dad?" Tate asked.  The tone in his voice was sharp with suspicion, and Mabel blinked, staring at him.  

 

"Fine," she said slowly.  "I mean, it's not like I talked to him or anything, but Soos said he was holding it together okay..." 

 

Tate's eyes narrowed.  He looked her up and down, like he was searching for something.  He gripped the edge of his sheet in a white knuckled grasp, and finally, he leaned forward and hissed a question.  "...Bill?" 

 

It was still shocking how that one stupid word could send shivers down her spine.  She stood straight, brows coming down in a confused stare.  "What?!"  

 

In a snap, Tate’s face went white.  His eyes widened and he looked at her like he’d said something terribly embarrassing.   “You aren’t him,” he said.  He gave himself a little shake, and he started to backpedal.  “I’m sorry, I--I don’t know what came over me--” 

 

Mabel cut him off.   _ “You know Bill?”   _

 

Her question sent Tate scrambling.  “Er - I know plenty of Bills - I mean up in Gravity Falls, there’s lots of folks--” 

 

Mabel darted over, grasping the railing on the side of the bed.  “No no no, you said it! You thought he’d possessed me too! Like he did with you!”  

 

“He didn’t-- but--”  Tate stuttered.  After a moment, his shoulders slumped.  “Yes.  I thought you - he - came to mock me.”  

 

Mabel scowled.  “Well, he didn’t!  I’m me!”  She paused, trying to sort out which question to ask first. Everything jumbled together in her head, and her dad would probably be back any minute, and  _ Tate knew about Bill _ .  She had to find out  _ everything _ , in maybe two minutes.  “What is he?  What does he want?!”  

 

Tate flinched a little, his gaze dropping to the sheets he still grasped.  “I don’t know.  I thought he wanted you, considerin’ all his mumbling, but he let you go free.”  

 

“Let me?!”  Mabel repeated, incredulous and angry.  Not at Tate; at that stupid triangle.  “Well, how’d he end up in your head?”  

 

Tate shrugged.  “I had a dream.  Didn’t think it was a real one, but he showed up, and he said if I gave him some of my time, he’d help my dad get better.  I haven’t… dad hasn’t been right since I was a kid.  ‘Course I agreed.  Didn’t know what it would cost me.”  

 

Mabel softened a little, at that.  Of course.  Out of all people, she knew family was a strong motivator.  “Did he?”  She asked.  

 

Tate glanced back at her when he shrugged, concern and a little bit of fear glistening in his eyes.  “I guess I’ll find out, won’t I?”  

 

Mabel swallowed.  She had to actively fight back the surge of sympathy that grew in her; she didn’t know how much time she had before her dad came back.  She wanted to leave Tate alone, but she couldn’t.  Not yet.  “Wait, you said you heard him mumbling - Bill?  How did you know?  What did he say?”  

 

Tate lifted his hands, then seemed to realize he didn’t know what to do with them, and dropped them back to his lap.  “It’s - when he takes a body, you get knocked out, floating around like a ghost.  You can see and hear, and he can hear you, but he’s the only one.  I think he forgot I was there most of the time, cuz he kept on mumbling about how he needed you to get back on track.  Don’t know the why or how, he wasn’t exactly clear.”  

 

Mabel’s lips twisted in a scowl, and she started winding her hair around her fingers.  “He really isn’t,” she grumbled.  

 

Tate hesitated, then asked, “Where’s he at now?” 

 

“He’s in my cat,” Mabel replied.  

 

“Oh.”  Tate blinked.  Then they both glanced up as footsteps came down the hall, and Mabel’s dad finally re-entered the room, coffee in hand.  

 

“Sorry about the wait,” he said, bringing the coffee cup to Tate with an apologetic smile.  “They were just brewing a fresh pot.”  

 

“Not a problem at all,” Tate said, taking the cup when it was offered.  He sipped at it, flinching a little at the heat.  

 

Mabel huffed, twining her hair even tighter around her finger.  She needed to talk to Tate more, and it wouldn’t happen with her dad in the room.  If Tate’s word could be trusted, then Bill hadn’t been lying about needing her help, so at least that was something.  She didn’t know how much it really meant, but it was better than nothing.     
  
She had to cram down the urge to giggle hysterically.  She was already thinking about Bill like he existed.  This was all so very crazy.  Demons hadn’t been a thing until last night, and here she was, talking about possession.  

 

“So,” her dad started, and Mabel cringed - it was the tone her dad used when he didn’t know how to start a conversation.  She knew that tone.  “Living up in Gravity Falls, I suppose you know Stan, then…”  

 

Tate nodded.  Once more his fists tightened on the sheets, white-knuckled, and the expression on his face twisted up into something awkward.  “Yeah.  I was living up there when… well, the last time you folks were up there.”  

 

It made her father go quiet, and Mabel glanced up at him.  He forced a small smile, and she had the feeling it was for her benefit.  “That would make sense,” he said.  “See a lot of each other?”  

 

“Naw,” Tate said, reaching up to rub the back of his head.  He flinched a little when he did, dropping his hand back to his lap.  “I see Mr. Pines around, but we don’t talk too much.  Unless he’s tryin’ to infiltrate a fishing group, and he hasn’t done that in a long time.”  

“I didn’t even know he fished,” her father said, a thin chuckle escaping him.  He opened his mouth, but before her father could continue his sentence, he jumped.  Now it was Mabel’s turn to stare with Tate at her dad.  “Sorry. Phone’s on vibrate.”  He fished the phone out of his pocket and cursed when he saw the name on the screen.  “Sorry, one minute.  Work.”     
  
They both watched like hawks as her father left the room.  His shoe barely cleared the threshold when Tate leaned forwards, focusing an intense stare on Mabel. 

 

“Did you say he’s in your  _ cat? _ ”  

 

Mabel had to stifle the urge to screech.  “Yes!”  She threw her hands up.  “I think he’s doing it to torture me.”  

 

“The eyes,” Tate said softly.  “It’s to hide his eyes, I reckon.”  

 

It was an idea that she hadn’t even thought of, but now that it was said it seemed remarkably obvious.  Mabel slapped a hand to her forehead.  “Of course!” She groaned.  “The slit pupils aren’t weird in a cat.”  

 

Tate nodded.  He looked at her, mouth curling up in something that wasn’t quite a frown.  “Look, I don’t know how much time we’ve got, but whatever you do, don’t make a deal.  He’s after you, but the way he was actin’, I think he can only get in if you say yes.”  

 

The idea made a little shiver run down her spine, and Mabel went back to twisting her hair.  “I wasn’t planning on it,” she muttered.  “But he says things…”  

 

Tate’s eyes darkened.  “Was he talkin’ about your brother?”  

 

Mabel’s breath shuddered.  She didn’t need to say anything; her expression must have changed just enough, because a sick sort of resignation came over Tate.  

 

He nodded, giving a quiet sigh.  “On the bus ride down from Gravity Falls, he said a few things.  Some really strange things.  Six fingers and edgeways pine trees…”  Tate trailed off, scowling at the far wall with unseeing eyes.  He took a breath, and he continued.  “He’s real good at figuring out what people want, but he calls himself a demon.  His word isn’t worth a whole damn lot.  Look, I’m real sorry about what happened to your brother, but whatever happens, whatever Bill says -- just don’t take the chance.”  

 

The term  _ pine tree _ made her go cold again, the memory of Bill’s nickname still fresh in her mind. Six fingers, too; that made the strange itch start in her head again, and even though it wouldn’t do anything to relieve it, she scratched the back of her head idly.   Mabel nodded, agreeing with Tate despite the way it made despair open up in her chest.  It was a little surprising how quickly she’d built up hope despite herself; she knew better than to believe a demon, but oh, how she wanted to.    

 

“But how do I get him to leave?”  She asked, half to herself.  She didn’t really expect Tate to know; he’d been possessed until Bill got bored.  Still, Tate looked at her anyways, giving the smallest of shrugs.  

 

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be in this mess,” he said, a mirthless smile in the corners of his mouth.  

 

“What mess?”  

 

Mabel nearly jumped out of her skin when her dad spoke from the doorway.  Tate’s eyes popped open wide, which said he hadn’t realized they were being snuck up on either.  At least that made her feel a bit better.  

 

“This whole mess,” Mabel said without missing a beat, waving her arm to indicate the hospital.  “Dad, I thought you always told me eavesdropping is rude.”  

 

She said it with her teasing tone, but there was just enough admonishment in her voice that her father looked a little bit chastened.  He gave her an awkward smile.  

 

“You’re right, kiddo, it absolutely is,” her father said.  That awkward smile remained on his face when he spoke next.  “Though, uh, speaking of giant messes… the intern did something, and now the server is dead, and my boss is losing his mind.  They’re calling me in, and I should drop you off at home.”

 

Mabel frowned, half-remembered stories about the intern flickering in her memory.  “Is that the same kid who deleted some important code by accident last month?”  

 

The smile on her dad’s face tightened into a forced grin.  “Yep!  Sure is!”  

 

She wanted to stay.  There was more she could ask Tate about, more she wanted to know, but she didn’t have her car and she didn’t have money to take the bus home.  She glanced sidelong at Tate, winding her hair so tight around her fingers that it started to cut off circulation.  

 

He could see her indecision, and one of his shoulders hitched up in half a shrug.  “Go on home,” he said, “I might as well rest anyways.  Take care of yourself, Mabel.”  

 

“You too,” she said, her voice dull in her own ears.  

 

“Thank you once again, Mr. Mcgucket,” her father said.  “Get well soon.”  

 

Walking out of the hospital with her father, Mabel started picking at the edge of the visitors sticker on her shirt.  A cold loneliness opened up in her chest as they left Tate McGucket’s room, made worse as they walked through the hospital halls.  Suddenly she was the only one who knew about Bill, who knew demons existed; she was on her own, and she didn’t have anyone to help her.   She wished that Dipper were still alive - or, still here, if he were alive somewhere else and Bill wasn’t lying - because she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d know what to do.  

 

Right now, she just felt adrift, and a little bit afraid.  She’d be going home to a house with a broken window and a cat with demon eyes, and her mind raced as she followed her dad to his car, trying to come up with some sort of plan.  

 

When she tugged her phone from her pocket, she thumbed through her games, searching for something to distract her.  She paused, thumb hovering over the cat collector game she’d gotten a week ago, and on impulse she went to her list of recent calls.  

 

Grunkle Stan’s number was at the top.  

 

She wasn’t alone.  Someone else knew the name Bill Cipher.  And she’d make him tell her the truth if she had to drag it out of him.  

 

\---

 

To get everything just right, Mabel had to plan her sneaky cell phone attack.  She texted  Grunkle Stan ‘ _ we need to talk _ ’ on the drive home, which was step one.  Step two was texting Soos to let him know she needed to talk to Stan, and to make Stan answer the phone when she called.  

 

Step three was a little bit more difficult.  

 

Her dad dropped her off at the house, and he peeled away in the car when she made it through the front door.  The problem was sitting just inside the entrance, staring up at her with shining yellow eyes.  Bill, in Cupcakes’ body, covered in dirt.  She didn’t want to know what he’d done during her absence.  

 

_ “Learn anything helpful, Star?”   _ Bill asked, his creepy voice slithering in the back of her mind as he wound around her ankles.  She set her jaw, stepping carefully over the cat and striding away.  He started to cackle.  

 

“Nope!”  Mabel said, forcing cheeriness into her voice.  “I’m gonna go make a hot chocolate!”

 

_ “You’re gonna say yes sometime,”  _ Bill said, his voice smug as he trotted after her on his little kitty paws.  “ _ You Pines always do.”   _

 

She gave him a glare as she strode into the kitchen, then did her best to ignore him as she went about making hot chocolate.  She filed that away as something to ask Grunkle Stan about, when she had the chance.  

 

But therein lay the problem.  She wanted to talk to Grunkle Stan  _ without _ demonic cat ears eavesdropping.  Whether Bill was lying about Dipper being alive or not, she needed to do anything she could to get the upper hand.   _ Anything _ . 

 

As she boiled water and fished out a packet of hot chocolate powder, Mabel did her best to think like Grunkle Stan.  

 

“Did you actually fix Tate’s dad?”  Mabel asked, trying to sound conversational as she poured hot chocolate powder into a mug.  

 

_ “If I tell you it’ll spoil the surprise!”   _ Bill said.  He leapt onto the counter.  Mabel had to stop herself from shoving him off by habit; Cupcakes wasn’t supposed to get onto the counter, but Bill probably wouldn’t respond well to being tossed onto the floor.  He sat, curling his tail around his paws.  

 

Mabel narrowed her eyes at him, glowering even as she grabbed the grumbling tea kettle off of the stove.  She poured the hot water into the mug, then watched as the steam rose.  The Grunkle Stan portion of her mind figured something out as she watched the steam trail up towards the ceiling.  She wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it would work, but something told her she had a good chance.    

 

“You probably couldn’t do it anyways,” she said, crossing the kitchen to rummage around in the spice cabinet.  “I bet you’re not as strong as you act like you are.  Why else would you come to me?”  

 

_ “I am way stronger than you are, Shooting Star, do  _ not _ test me.  You won’t like the results.”   _ Bill’s voice no longer had the tinge of playfulness to it; now it was just flat annoyance.  “ _ I’ve been around since before you were born and I’ll stick around long after you’re dead.  Hey, maybe I’ll wear your skull like a hat!”   _

 

He probably would.  Still, Mabel worked hard to keep her face unimpressed.  She paused to roll her eyes, flipping her hair dramatically.  “Suuuuure.” 

 

After a minute, she found the baggie.  It was hidden in the back of the cabinet, and she retrieved it with a victorious ‘aha!’  She waved the bag over her head, moving back to Bill on the counter.  “I bet you’re so weak you wouldn’t even be able to get out of a magic circle.”  

 

“ _ Magic circle?  Ha!  You don’t know anything about magic circles.”   _ His tail flicked back and forth impatiently, but his ears had perked up a little, and his eyes were tracking the baggie with interest.  

 

“Then let’s test it out!”  Mabel said, giving him a big grin.  His tail flicked again, and she got the impression that if he could, he’d be grinning a feral grin right back at her.  She unzipped the baggie, and she stuffed her hand in, grabbing the biggest handful of crushed up herb that she could.  

 

Mabel wasn’t careful when she laid the circle out around him.  She drew thick lines with the crushed leaves, wrapping all around Bill in his stupid cat body.  It was barely even a circle when she was done, more like an amorphous blob.  It didn’t matter, though; she crossed her arms, baggie still in hand as Bill’s pupils blew into huge black pools.  

 

_ “What…?  What did you do?”   _ He asked, reaching out one paw and batting at the edge of the circle.  “ _ This isn’t magic!  This is…”   _

 

“Catnip!”  Mabel said, the grin still huge on her face.  If Bill reacted like Cupcakes did to catnip - which it looked like he did - he’d roll around in it for about ten minutes, drooling and mewing, and then he’d pass out.  That would give her some time to have a serious heart to heart with Grunkle Stan.  

 

Bill’s pupils were still huge.  He pawed at the catnip around him, and then dived face-first onto the tile counter.  He hit with a thud, and threw half the catnip circle across the counter.  She’d have some explaining to do, but it would be later.  For now, at least, Bill was distracted.  Grabbing her hot chocolate mug, Mabel turned and strode from the kitchen.  “Have fun!” 

 

_ “This body is leaking!  Out of its face!  Why do I want to eat this?  I’m going to eat this with my mouth!  I’m going to KILL YOU!”   _ Bill screeched. __ She glanced back just in time to see him shove his face into the catnip, mouth wide open.  He chewed in that ridiculous way cats do, snapping awkwardly with bits of leaf clinging all over his face.  Mabel stifled a snort, rushing to get the keys for her car.  

 

_ “SHOOTING STAR!” _  Bill shouted after her, his mental voice fading the further she got.  “ _ You tricked me!”  _

  
Mabel grinned into her hot chocolate.  “Hopefully not for the last time, either…”  She snatched her keys off of the coffee table, and she slipped out the front door.  Now that Bill was thoroughly distracted with kitty drugs, she had a Grunkle to interrogate. 


	9. In which Grunke Stan is Honest

She drove with the windows down, listening to the sounds of the city as she drove through Oakland and Emeryville to reach the frontage road.  It was a narrow strip of asphalt that ran alongside the freeway, bordering the bay, and passing both the Emeryville and Berkeley marinas.  It was a favorite for joggers and bicyclists, and when her friends had made a short-lived pact to get fit last January, Mabel had biked down it more than once.  There was a little section of roadside parking, next to the smallest strip of sandy beach one could imagine, and that’s where Mabel pulled over.  

 

She hesitated a little, tracing her fingers over the puffy stickers on her phone case.  “I’ll make him tell the truth,” she told the grinning hamburger with arms.  “Whatever it takes.”  

 

The itch was back in her brain, and nervous butterflies had hatched in her stomach.  She bit her lip, scowling at her phone.  There was no reason to be this afraid.  She trusted Grunkle Stan.  He loved her, and he’d proved it over and over again with that strange quiet understanding they shared.  He was the only one who really understood what she’d gone through.  

 

“I can do this,” she muttered to herself, thumbing over to Grunkle Stan’s number.  She hit the call icon.  

 

She started twirling her hair around her finger as she listened to it ring.  Distantly she could hear the lapping of the waves on the beach, and the slap of shoes as a runner dashed by on the trail.  

 

Her stomach started to sink on the fourth ring, and she was preparing to hang up and call Soos when the line clicked.  

 

“...okay, okay!  Get off me!”  Stan’s voice, distant and speaking to someone else.   “Hello?  Mabel?”  

 

Mabel let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.  “Grunkle Stan,” she said, “No more lies.  I need you to tell me the truth.  You recognized the name Bill Cipher, right?”  

 

“No,” Stan said, immediately.  Then, “Agh, maybe.  Or, I don’t know.”  He paused.  Mabel didn’t say anything, grasping the hem of her shirt tightly.  The silence drew out between them, and she couldn’t bring herself to break it.  

 

“Okay,” Stan said, breathing the word out like a sigh.  “Okay, okay.  Soos and that pig of yours are both looking at me like I kicked a puppy.  I haven’t kicked a puppy since ‘09!”   She had the feeling he was directing that last comment at Soos.  She stayed quiet, waiting for Stan to continue. 

 

He did.   “Yes, pumpkin.  I know about Bill.”  

 

“How?”  She asked.  Her voice was crackly, and a little bit lost.  

 

Stan made a gruff noise.  He could hear the hurt in her voice, and he was feeling guilty now.  She could tell.  “There’s… a lot you don’t know about me, sweetie.”  

 

“Like what?”  She demanded.  “Grunkle Stan, you can’t tell me you know the name of a demon that’s stalking me and not explain what you mean!”  

 

“He’s doing what?!”  It was like she’d flipped a switch, and now Stan sounded like he was going to go on the warpath.  He’d sounded the exact same way when she’d told him that at a dance last year Reubin Gaines had copped a feel, and he’d told her to knee him in the crotch because  _ ‘that’s the only thing guys understand - violence!’  _  “That little creep - if I get my hands on him--” 

 

“He’s a  _ demon _ , Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said, and like that they were back to awkward silences. 

 

“I know,” Stan muttered, after a moment.  “Look, kid… I’m not great at opening up about this stuff, okay?  I haven’t told...anybody.  Not in over thirty years.  Nobody’d believe me, it’s too crazy, and especially after Dipper...”  He cleared his throat.  “Anyhow.  Just, go easy on me, okay?”  

 

Mabel grasped a lock of her hair, twirling it tight around her finger.  “No promises,” she grumbled, but it was a little softer now.  “Spill it, old man.”   

 

“I’m not… who I say I am.”  Stan paused, then groaned.  “I don’t know how to say this.  It doesn’t change anything, okay?  You’re my favorite grand-niece.  Waddles is my least favorite grand-pig.  Soos… sheesh, Soos, stop chewing on that.”  There was silence for a moment more as Stan gathered his thoughts. “I stole my brother’s identity nearly thirty five years ago now.”  

 

It felt like the floor had fallen away.  For a dizzying moment Mabel felt like she was floating.  She closed her eyes, and with an awkward scramble that ended with her banging her legs on the steering wheel, she brought her knees to her chest.  Taking a deep breath, she listened to the waves of the bay.  “Why?”  

 

“Because… because he disappeared.  Stanford Pines is my brother.  I’m Stanley Pines.  His twin.  Ford was always… he was a know-it-all, a smartass.  Smarter’n me.  It’s a long story, but we weren’t talking.  Not for years.  Then out of the blue, he sent me this postcard…”  

 

Grunkle Stan paused, like he was lost in the memories.  The silence drew out for a beat, and then he blew out a heavy sigh.  “I came up to see him.  What else was I gonna do?  He was living up here, in Gravity Falls.  Studying some ‘scientific abnormalities’.”  She could hear the air quotes in Stan’s voice.   “He built this…  _ thing _ below the shack.  This huge thing.  A portal.  We got into this stupid fight, and, well….he got knocked through.  And it broke.”  

 

“I spent thirty years trying to get it working again.  He had all these notes, left all this weird crap laying around.  He wasn’t wrong about Gravity Falls.  There’s all kinds of things here that shouldn’t be.  In thirty years, I couldn’t get it to work.  I wasn’t…”  Stan’s voice broke.  Silence, again, and Mabel found herself chewing on her hair.  She hadn’t wished for sweatertown since she’d been a kid, but pulling something warm and knitted over her head and pretending the world didn’t exist seemed like a really nice idea right now.  

 

When Stan continued, he sounded defeated.  Tired.  She’d never really heard Stan sound his age, and it scared her a little.  “I woulda given anything up to make it work.  Anything. But I couldn’t.  I wasn’t smart enough.  And then you two came up, you and your brother.  I bet you can’t remember a whole lot about the end of the summer, right?  There’s a part where it just gets blurry.  Right around when Dipper disappeared.”  

 

“Yeah,” Mabel said, a weak sound.  “But, Grunkle Stan…”  

 

“What does this gotta do with Bill?”  Stan asked.  “That Bill guy’s in Ford’s notes.  Ford made these, uh, these ‘journals’, I guess.  Three of ‘em.  He left me one, before he disappeared.  Wanted me to hide it, but I didn’t.  I kept looking for the other two, the whole damn time I lived up here.  Then there was that summer, five years ago, and the journal disappeared.  It was just gone.  I flipped the shack looking for it, and instead I found these scans, folders of ‘em, in the room with that awful copier I never got rid of.   Not just one journal, though, all three of ‘em.  Mabel, one of them had Dipper’s handwriting all over it.”  

 

It was like falling into ice water; Mabel couldn’t breathe.  Couldn’t think, not really.  Her eyes were watering, and she tried to gasp for air, wrapping her arms around herself.  For a moment she couldn’t even keep the phone to her ear.  

 

At once the car was too small and too hot. She fumbled for the door handle, bashing her knuckles against the plastic paneling.  On shaky legs, she burst out of the car, only just remembering to shut it behind her.  She still had the phone clutched in her hand, and she could hear Grunkle Stan, tinny and small from the speaker.  She still couldn’t breathe.  

 

Crossing the sidewalk, she stumbled and slid down the rocks that separated the trail from the strip of beach.  There was no one else there, by some small miracle; nobody walking their dog in the surf or playing in the dirt.  That meant she could wander and stand with her feet in the freezing bay water, soaking through her shoes and socks, without any strange looks.  

 

The waves washed over her feet.  The breeze off the bay buffeted her hair, twisting it all around her.  When she blinked, eyes stinging, fat tears slid down her cheeks.  Finally,  _ finally _ she was able to suck in a deep breath, and she brought her phone back to her ear.  

 

Stan was frantic.  “--sweetie!  Mabel!  Answer me!  Please, kiddo,  _ please--”  _

 

_ “ _ I’m here,” she said, and her voice was wet and wobbly but she couldn’t care.  She had to focus.  “I’m here.  What did it say about Bill?”  

 

“Not as much as I wish it did,” Stan said.  There was still a waver in his voice.  He knew she wasn’t okay, but he wasn’t going to push it if she didn’t want to talk.  He was still her Grunkle Stan, and she could still read him like a gross, old book, even if he wasn’t Stanford Pines.  “This Cipher guy’s bad news.  Gets into people’s heads and messes them up.  The book says he’s powerful, most powerful thing that Ford ever ran into.”

 

Even through the shock, even though tears are still running down her face, all Mabel can do is remember Bill with a mouthful of catnip.  “He needs permission,” she muttered.  “I think, anyhow.  Tate said…”  

 

“Tate?  Tate McGucket?”  Stan asked.  

 

“Yeah,” she said dully.  “Bill was in Tate’s head, he made a deal.  That’s how he got down here.  That’s how he found me.”  

 

“Whatever he says, don’t listen to him,” Stan said.  “I know it’s hard to trust me… hell, after all that, I don’t expect you to trust me ever again, but Mabel, do  _ not _ turn around and listen to that little triangle  _ freak _ .  Everything in these notes says he’s a godawful monster, and considering I can’t remember crap from the end of that summer, I’m betting he had something to do with it.”  

 

The end of summer, foggy in her memory and thick with the all-encompassing feeling of terror.  She didn’t think about it, tried not to think about it for so long, but now when she tried to remember nothing came forward.  The beginning of summer was so clear, and then it kept getting choppy, strange, bits missing.  She could see it clearer, now, where the gaps were.  She closed her eyes, two more tears slipping down her cheeks.  The wind off the bay made them cold against her skin.  

 

“If Dipper was writing in one of the journals… that means he had one,” she said softly.  “He knew about this.  The weirdness.”  

 

“It’s not just that.”  The way that Grunkle Stan spoke, it sounded like it hurt to say.  “It’s… I’ve had time.  Five years to go through the Shack and try and piece together what happened.  Everything’s wrong, and… Mabel, Ford was  _ here. _  And I think we all knew.”  

 

Even now, with the story fresh in her mind, it took Mabel a minute to remember who Ford  _ was. _  Her other great uncle, the one who didn’t exist.  The one that Stan was pretending to be.  “Wait… but you said he disappeared.”  

 

“He did,” Grunkle Stan said.  “Through that portal in the basement.  I spent so long rebuilding that thing.  Trying to get it to work, to bring my brother back.  I was workin’ on it all summer long, while you kids were keeping yourselves busy, and then after...after that summer the portal was gone.  All of it.  Just junk and parts and these stupid diagrams and character sheets for this nerd game Ford used to love, with Dipper’s notes all over the damn place.  It’s all  _ new. _ ”  

 

The forgetfulness itch changed.  It didn’t feel like an itch anymore so much as a smoldering burn.  For a moment something danced in her memory; a fight, a stupid one, over TV.  Dipper had covered the living room of the Shack with graph paper, and they couldn’t watch Ducktective even though they’d all planned on it, and… 

 

Almost.   _ Almost _ , she could almost remember.  The harder she tried, though, the faster it slipped away.  Like trying to hold onto a dream.  

 

“Bill Cipher says Dipper is alive,” Mabel said, the words slipping out.  The first time she'd really said them to anyone else.  

 

She can hear Grunkle Stan suck in a sharp breath.  They both want it to be true.  She wanted her twin back.  So did Grunkle Stan.  It’s strange to think of Stan having a twin, to think there could be another person like him out there.  It made her let out a shuddering sigh when she realized that this strange feeling, the inability to see Grunkle Stan as somebody with a  _ twin _ , was something that all her friends from high school would feel.  They’d only ever known her.  They’d never known Dipper.  

 

A lone twin was a hard thing to be.  

 

But she’d been one for a while, now.  She gulped in a deep breath, and she shook herself a little.  Tonight she would go home, and she would cry, probably in the shower so no one would know, and she’d try and process all of this.  Everything was turned sideways, everything she thought she knew about life a little bit off, but the burning feeling in the back of her mind told her this was right.  This was the truth, even if it made her stomach feel hollow and her hands shake.

 

She wiggled her toes in her wet socks, just as another wave broke over her shoes.  She wiped away the dampness on her cheeks, and she tried her best to rally herself, allowing one last sniffle.  

 

“Grunkle Stan?” She asked, her voice small.  “Can you send me all the files about Bill?”  

 

“Sure, sweetie,” he said.  “Post office is closed, though.  Have to send ‘em tomorrow.”  

 

Even now it was hard not to slap a hand to her face.  “Is Soos still standing?”  She asked, remembering that her favorite handyman had been in the room during Stan’s reveal.  

 

“Eh...  something like that,” Stan muttered.  Despite it all, she wondered what had happened to Soos, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask how mindblown the handyman was.  She could only think of trying to find some way to gain the upper hand.  To gain back some control over her life. 

 

“Tell him to text me pictures of the files as soon as possible,” Mabel said.  “He’ll know what to do.”  

 

“Okay,” Stan said.  “Just… be careful, whatever you do.  I love you, kid.”  

 

“I will,” Mabel said, barely more than a whisper.  “Love you too.”  

 

And that, at least, was the truth. 

 

\---

 

It took half an hour before the texts came rolling in.     
  
Mabel stayed away from home in the meantime.  She didn’t want to go back, didn’t want to see the awful demon in her poor kitty.  She walked up and down the frontage road, feeling a little bit like a ghost.  She ignored a few snapchats from her friends, and eventually she gathered herself up and went to the Berkeley public library.  

 

As the texts kept coming, she poked around at the library index, looking for any books about demonology.  When that as a keyword only brought up shlocky supernatural fiction - some with some really un-subtle romantic subtext - she sighed and moved to the computers.  Not before writing down a couple titles of the more interesting-looking ones, though.  She’d never grown out of her taste for bad romance.   

 

Mabel sat herself down in front of a computer, pulling out her phone to finally examine the images that Soos had sent her.  Soos, at least, was pretty okay with a cell phone camera, and all the images were clear enough that, when she zoomed in, she could read all of the text on the scanned pages.  

 

All of them were spread out on a table.  There were a sea of unbound pages, she could see the edges of the others in every picture, but Soos had taken care to make sure everything was legible.  Endless handwritten notes and drawings decorated those pages, but she ignored the extraneous things, the weird notes in the margins, and just looked at the parts about Bill.  

 

The bits and pieces that were scratched out scared her the most, somehow.  All that flattery, the notes about how trustworthy and gentlemanly Bill was, slashed out by haphazard red ink.  Then everything about how dangerous he was. How he should never be summoned, never given a chance to sneak into someone’s brain. Her heart clenched when she saw Bill in the zodiac wheel, and she recognized the shooting star - and the pine tree, too.  She kept herself from starting to cry in the library, but only barely.  

 

Soos had sent her pictures of every page that had the word Bill on them.  There was a page about summoning, and a page about fighting Bill’s mischief.  A few other pages, some with only a mention of the triangular demon in amongst notes about other strange phenomena.  It was one of the random scribbles that caught her attention, almost completely obliterated by a blotch of misplaced ink.  

 

_ Further research into Key of Solomon,  _ it said, just underneath a hastily scribbled pentacle.  It looked like something out of that TV show Unnatural, with the demon-hunting Colt brothers.  In that, they used it to trap demons, when the Colt brothers weren’t being suicidally codependent.  Mabel frowned and turned to the library computer, googling the Key of Solomon.  

 

The first thing she found out was that the Key of Solomon wasn’t one specific glyph; it was a manuscript, an old one, about ways to keep and control spirits.  It was also posted, in various formats, online.  Half an hour later Mabel was still skimming through them, chewing on a lock of hair as she read as much as she could.  A lot of it was old and boring, and difficult to read through considering how many times it had been translated.  As ill informed as it might be,  Mabel mostly just looked at the pictures of the different seals, and doodled copies of them on a piece of scrap paper she’d stolen from the library.  

 

After a while she gave up.  She emailed some of the links to herself, and she took her phone and left.  

 

She didn’t even turn on the radio during her drive back to her house.  It felt like a long drive, one where she wished that Dipper could help.  Now she had more than she wanted to deal with, more information than she knew how to process on her own.  With everything that Stan had said, with everything the scanned journal pages said about Bill, saying she felt out of her depth was putting it way too lightly.  

 

She sat in the driveway for a handful of minutes when she got home, staring up at the house.  Then she took a deep breath, and she got out of her car, slamming the door behind her.  

 

Bill wasn’t in the kitchen, though there were whorls of catnip where he had been earlier.  He’d gotten it all over the kitchen.  Mabel took her time cleaning it up.  While she did her mom came home, carting a few bags of groceries.  That ended with Mabel being shoved into the position of prep cook; at least chopping onions gave her a reason to cry in the kitchen.  

 

Some of the weirdness in her head eased.  Wherever Bill was, he wasn’t coming out to harass her.  Not yet, anyways.  The texts sat in her pocket, as did the strip of paper with doodled sigils on it.  Her mom was happy to blather on about people at work as she cooked, and Mabel did her best to listen.  

 

It was a welcome distraction.  When everything was simmering on the stove, Mabel’s dad came back, harried and annoyed with everything.  

 

“Travis Taye,” he said, as soon as he entered the kitchen, “Is the worst intern I have ever met.”  

 

During dinner, Mabel let her dad regale her and her mom with tales about how awful Travis was at his job.  Considering all of the things that he’d done since he had been hired at her dad’s work, Mabel kind of agreed.  It sounded like Travis needed a career change. 

 

The whole meal, Bill stayed hidden.  Mabel couldn’t complain.  It was a nice change, going back to what her life had been just a week ago.  Before demons were a real thing, and before her Grunkle Stan turned out to be…. Well, still her grunkle Stan, but the wrong one.  It was a soothing break, a way for her to relax a little, and to remember that even though everything else had been turned on its head, her parents were the same people they’d always been.  

 

But dinner ended, all too soon, and Mabel went upstairs to her room.  There, she found Bill.  Sitting on Dipper’s bed, angry, tail flicking back and forth.  She didn’t ask how long he’d been there, but she also didn’t shove him off of Dipper’s bed.  

 

“ _ That was a cheap trick, Shooting Star,” _ Bill growled at her.  “ _ I hope it was worth it.”   _

 

Mabel bit the inside of her cheek, stifling the urge to demand, in the brattiest way possible,  _ or what? _  If she started talking to him now, she’d start yelling at him, and then her parents would want to know why she was screaming at the cat and it would go downhill very fast.  

 

Instead, she deflected, gathering up a change of clothes so that she could go shower.  “Not now.  I’ve dealt with enough stuff today.”  

 

His ears went flat back on his head, and his tail twitched fiercely.  “ _ You don’t get to pick and choose, Mabel!  And I’m running out of TIME _ !  _ If you think I’m bad, oh-ho, you should see the OTHER one! _ ”

 

Mabel grit her teeth.  Much like in the dream she’d had - only last night, which was strange to realize, it felt like it had been a million years ago - she grabbed one of her stuffed animal chimeras and threw it at Bill.  This time he foofed up, hackles rising, and he dashed out of the way.  The chimera plushie missed him by a hair.   

 

“I  _ said _ not now!”  She snarled at him.  She gathered her clothes up with a sweep of her arm, and she stomped out of her bedroom, locking the bathroom door after her.  

 

When she came out, Bill had left her room.  That was fine with her.  Laying out her phone and the drawings on her bedside table, Mabel flopped onto her mattress.  Her hair feathered out across the pillow, damp and smelling of cotton candy shampoo.  

  
She was actually tired.  It was nice, being exhausted.  When she shut her eyes, her brain couldn’t even form coherent thoughts.  Instead of worrying about everything she’d learned, she drifted off, thinking only of the smell of cotton candy. 


End file.
